Missed Cues
by aflightoffancy
Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other. MA
1. Chapter 1

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

Disclaimer: Max and Alec aren't mine. Just borrowing.

_So I was working on a sequel to _Loose the Hounds_ (Honest!) when someone made the point that I had failed to deal with White appropriately in an earlier story. It's quite true. I was being a weenie. White's part of canon and I feel like I'm messing where I shouldn't when he needs to be offed. That and he's just never been part of the show I enjoyed. But, of course, once it was pointed out, my feverish little brain started working on this without me. I'll get back to the sequel eventually. (Honest!)_

Chapter One

* * *

"Alec, will you hurry up?"

"I know you're in a lousy mood, Max, but could you tone down the 'let's-abuse-Alec' thing for two seconds? My ears are tired."

"Quit talking. Walk faster."

"I'm walking at exactly the same speed you are, Max."

"We're late!"

"Are we?" Alec asked in mock-astonishment. "Cause I didn't pick up on that the last four _hundred_ times you told me."

"Then why aren't you moving faster?"

"If I move any faster, I'll be blurring and that tends to tip off the natives about the whole transgenic thing," he answered through clenched teeth.

"We were supposed to be there two hours ago!"

"Max," he said in complete exasperation, "we had an emergency. Logan'll understand."

"That doesn't change the fact that we should have been there a long time ago!"

Max knew she was being unreasonable, but she was running on automatic right now. She was pissed at the entire world, needed to vent, and Alec just so happened to be the guy who was around. Granted, he somehow _always_ seemed to be around these days, and granted she _always_ seemed to be pissed at something or other.

It was one of the reasons she was happy she was going to see Logan. He patiently bore her ranting or tried to logically and calmly sort through whatever was bothering her. Even if Logan was going to tell them about some impending disaster, she could still enjoy the few minutes of relative peace and calm that Logan could provide away from TC. After the past few weeks, she was starting to think stress was her middle name and disaster was somehow tattooed on her forehead.

"Max, are you even listening to me?"

"What?"

"Why do I even bother?" Alec huffed. "You drag me along because your _boyfriend_, and don't get me started on that again, has something that simply cannot wait, after hours of fighting an entire mountain of sewage, and let me tell you something, you so owe me a set of clothes, because I'll never be able to wear those again, and then you yell at me, and to top it all off, you don't even listen to me!"

"When you have something useful to say, I'll listen to you," Max groused.

"Something useful?" Alec said, and Max nearly groaned. Alec had that playful lilt in his voice that did not bode well for her sanity.

"You know… useful. Something that almost never comes out of your mouth."

"One," Alec said, and although she wasn't looking at him she could hear the grin, "I use my mouth for all kinds of useful things, not that you would appreciate it. Or maybe you would. You still can't touch Logan even though you two are back together again, which is just insane, by the way. You guys should see yourselves together. There's awkward and then there's you two. You have the chemistry of... Mole and... ok, pretty much everybody." Max shot a glare in his direction and Alec cleared his throat. "Where was I? Two! I say lots of useful things. All the time as a matter of fact. Not two hours ago, I yelled 'Get out of the way!' As I recall, that kept you out of the sewage while I ended up covered in it."

Max rolled her eyes, trying not to smile. The sight of Alec covered in muck had been the highlight of the whole, literally, crappy day. The sewer line break had just been the latest in a long line of small, but very obnoxious disasters. This many transgenics suddenly moving into a relatively small area and trying to make it livable had resulted in more headaches than Max would have thought possible. In the middle of it all, Logan had called and asked her to come to Joshua's old house as soon as possible. Max had assured him she would be there as soon as she could after they got the current disaster cleared up.

She was looking forward to seeing him anyway. During the Jam Pony incident, they'd come too close to losing everything and it had made her realize how stupid she was to keep pushing him away. They could all die at any moment and she was wasting what little time she might have left refusing to let Logan share in it. They'd never even had a real try at being together and if she was going to die, she didn't want to go regretting that she'd never really given them a chance.

Once she'd told him that she'd made up her affair with Alec, things had been easier between them, not great, but better. Logan hadn't appreciated the lies, and he was still giving Alec the evil eye if he saw him anywhere near her, which was virtually all the time these days, but they were working through it. Sort of. In their own awkward, we're-ignoring-the-problem, sort of way.

On one hand, it was still painful, since they couldn't touch, but on the other, it was good just being able to tell the truth. Not having to pretend she and Alec were more than friends helped to ease some of the tension that constantly crept up and threatened to overwhelm her. And being around Logan was good for her. It was soothing being around someone who wasn't as royally screwed up as all of Manticore's people seemed to be. Sometimes she looked around TC and thought she was in charge of a zoo. Other times she thought it was closer to an insane asylum.

Going from just looking out for herself and occasionally helping out a few friends, to being in charge of dozens of people, all looking to her for guidance was more than she'd ever signed up for. Logan couldn't stay in TC because of the toxins, and therefore working things out was an even longer, drawn-out process, but the upside to being separated was the renewed hope she would find a cure. She had a bigger pool of transgenics to pull from now. Maybe one of them would know someone or could point her in the right direction. It wasn't much, but that hope was keeping her going.

Max tried not to be annoyed that Alec was coming along this time. Logan would be upset that Alec was there and thus would be all business. Alec, for his part, would no doubt obliviously suck up all the air talking the whole time she and Logan were together, but it couldn't be helped. Logan had said this was official transgenic business and it had sounded urgent.

Which meant they needed to hurry. They were already past late.

"You're still talking," Max said. "Hurry up."

Alec sighed. "Max, will you lighten up? He's probably gonna tell us about something oh-so-important that one of our people already figured out two days ago. We've got a couple of hackers that make Logan look like a 6 yr old with a calculator, and not one of those fancy calculators either."

Max just gritted her teeth, refusing to admit that Alec could easily be right. The last couple of tidbits that Logan had passed along had been old news. Max hadn't told Logan though. He was a good man who was trying to help them. She'd simply gotten him in contact with their own hackers so that they could coordinate instead of compete for new info.

Newly reminded how much she was looking forward to seeing Logan, Max sped up just a little, noting that Alec matched her automatically. She also noted that he'd stopped talking at last. He must have realized that she'd reached the limits of her patience.

A few minutes later, they finally reached Joshua's old house and stopped at the bottom of the front steps. For a second, Max looked around, afraid that maybe they'd made a mistake and gone to the wrong house.

The door was half-open, nearly torn off its hinges. Max started forward to just barge in, but Alec kept her back with a firm grip on her arm. Before she even realized what was happening, Alec was in front of her inching forward with a gun in his hand, raised and pointed toward the entrance.

Alec moved like she'd rarely seen. He moved like a soldier, gun at the ready, eyes watching like a hawk, searching for hidden dangers. He made no sound, a picture of lithe transgenic grace as he eased up the front steps and then inside. At some point Alec must have mentally catalogued points in the floor that would give away his position. If she hadn't been looking at him, she wouldn't have known he was there as he moved over the worn wooden floorboards that would have made noise had anyone else been walking over them.

Max followed behind him as Alec swept the main room before heading for the other rooms to clear the house and ensure they were alone. Max knew they were. The house felt empty. She allowed Alec to make sure, nevertheless. They couldn't be too careful.

"Max?"

She heard Alec's voice coming from the next room. It didn't sound right though. Alec was the poster-boy for bravado. This… he sounded… hesitant.

Max followed the sound of his voice and walked into the old kitchen. Alec was standing near the door, his back to the wall, so that when she walked in she was right beside him.

The first thing she noticed was that the room was a wreck. The table was in pieces. All of the other furniture was overturned. Logan must've had papers stacked on the table, because they were strewn everywhere along with whatever dishes had been out.

One particular place on the floor, she couldn't quite figure out what it was. Maybe Logan had been doing laundry. It looked like a heap of dirty clothes in the corner.

As her eyes studied the lump of clothing, it seemed to shift and move as her eyes fought to make something recognizable of what she was seeing. It just didn't make sense, that lump of clothes. The room smelled like blood. That didn't make sense either. There was nothing in the room that should make it smell like blood.

"Max," Alec said, his voice strained, "Max, I'm so sorry."

She turned toward him, feeling like she was moving underwater, and saw that he too was studying the odd pile of clothing in the corner. She turned back toward the corner and her vision seemed to swim, her brain refusing to make sense of what she was seeing.

Max forced her feet to move forward, closer to the thing in the corner. Blood stained the floor around it, but still the shapes refused to coalesce into a recognizable form.

She knelt on the ground beside it, not caring that she was kneeling in a pool of blood, barely noting that it was still slightly warm, but definitely cooling to room temperature.

Alec sank to his knees beside her. She saw that one of his hands was smeared with blood. He must have tried to feel for a pulse. There wouldn't be one though. Not with this amount of damage. A human couldn't sustain this kind of injury and live.

"We were late," Max whispered.

"Max…" Alec said worriedly. But Max couldn't look at him. All she could see was the man in front of her, lying in a pool of his own blood, battered nearly beyond recognition.

Logan.

* * *

_Well. Umm… If y'all are too ticked to read the rest, I won't bother, so… let me know, I guess._


	2. Chapter 2

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

_See? This is what happens when people point out that I've been a weenie. I go nutso and people DIE. But seriously, I was trying to figure out how to get around the hand-holding thing again (grrr...) and umm... people DIE._

Chapter Two

* * *

Max held a hand out toward Logan, but stopped short, horrified by what she'd almost done.

"Alec help me," Max ordered angrily. "I can't touch him. You've got to do something!"

"Max," Alec said gently, shifting slightly so that he was closer to facing her, "it's okay for you to touch him."

"But the virus!" she said, not caring how desperate and strident she sounded.

"Max-"

She smacked him hard across the face, and he rocked back under the force. "_Do_ something! I've pulled your ass out of the fire more times than I can count and you can do the right thing for once in your life and _help_ me!"

Alec grasped her shoulders, shaking her roughly. "Max, listen to me. He's gone. I'm sorry, but he's _gone_."

"He's… he can't… Logan…"

Alec released her, his hands falling to his knees. He leaned forward and closed his eyes. "He's gone, Max," Alec said hollowly, his voice barely audible. "It's ok for you to touch him. You… you can't hurt him anymore."

Max turned back toward the body.

The body.

Logan wasn't Logan anymore. All that was left was the body.

She reached a hand out toward him, not caring that it was shaking. There were bullet wounds, too many to count, but from the state of the room and the... body, Logan had fought them first. He was lying on his side, his face a mass of blood and bruises, broken skin over his knuckles, scratches on his arms. Logan wasn't a fighter, but he'd tried desperately to hold his attacker off, tried to wait for backup to arrive. But they were late. _She_ was late.

Max set her trembling hand on his arm. He was still warm. He still felt alive despite what her eyes were telling her, but there was no heartbeat, no feel of a pulse. She could touch him now that she'd killed him. How fair was that?

She pulled him toward her, tears falling down her cheeks. Max winced when his arm fell back to the floor, his watch making a loud cracking noise as it hit the ground.

She wrapped her arms around Logan and pressed him to her chest. She couldn't care less about the blood as she began to rock back and forth, sobs finally breaking free. She'd forgotten how big he was, how small he made her feel physically, despite her superior strength.

He'd done everything he could to help her from the very beginning, and she'd kept him at a distance, very literally in the past year. She'd brought only more hardship and trouble to his already troubled world. She'd complicated his efforts to help the normal people who still needed helping. Now he wouldn't help anyone ever again.

Fresh sobs tore from her chest, her heart already broken by death after death, loss after loss, newly burdened by this added weight. Logan had loved her and she'd been too screwed up to accept it. She'd never even told him she loved him, not face to face.

Max wasn't sure how long she stayed there. She was beyond numb, beyond seeing her surroundings, beyond caring if Logan's murderer was still nearby. All she was aware of was the body cooling in her arms.

She heard Alec saying something, but the words didn't register. She felt fingers on her wrists, prying them away from Logan. Alec gently set him back on the floor and the sight of Logan's ruined body was more than she could bear. She felt more than her heart break. Her whole being was broken. _She_ was broken.

Alec must have understood, at least as much as he was able. He helped her off the floor and walked her into the other room, away from the grisly sight of Logan's corpse, then wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him, making calming, soothing noises, interspersing them with random words of comfort.

Finally, Max ran out of tears. She was simply empty. Alec was no longer whispering, but he was still holding her, rocking gently, one hand at her back, the other was at the side of her face, his fingers trailing in a soothing repetitive motion over her hair, his chin resting against the top of her head.

"Max?" he finally said.

"Yeah."

"We should go."

"Yeah."

She slowly disentangled herself from him, stepping back, feeling how Alec's warm hands stayed with her to keep her steady. He'd let her back away, but his fingers remained, gripping her firmly just above her elbow, supporting her.

Warm hands, hands that were always touching her. Alec was always bumping shoulders with her, always teasing her with a pat on the head, keeping her from rushing in too quickly with a firm hand on her arm, or reassuring her with a hand on her back. A warm hand, touching her. Alec, but not Logan. Logan couldn't, not that he'd ever been one to touch her. She'd been too standoffish. And now he was dead. His skin was cold. No more chances, no more dreams of a cure.

"Max, can you hear me?" Alec asked. From the tone, she doubted it was the first time he'd tried.

Max looked over his shoulder, her eyes immediately travelling toward the next room, but Alec sidestepped to block her view of the kitchen and Logan.

"Max?"

"Yeah." Max couldn't seem to come up with any other word but that one.

"Stay here. Don't move," he ordered.

"Yeah," she said, and frowned that she'd said it again. "Ok."

Max blinked and Alec was gone. For several minutes, she heard noises that she couldn't quite place. It was all she could do not to go back into the kitchen. Logan was alone in there. She'd come too late and now she'd left him alone again. She'd left his body behind, just like Ben... like too many others.

Alec reappeared in front of her. He physically turned her and with an arm around her, steered her out the front door. He didn't slow outside, but kept her moving in the direction of Terminal City.

"I'm sorry, Max, but our prints were all over that house."

She frowned, not understanding, then looked over her shoulder and saw smoke beginning to trail out of several windows.

"The papers in the kitchen weren't anything useful and it looked like Logan wiped his computer system as soon as they broke in. Dix called though. Logan sent a file. It's time-stamped. He sent it... not long before we got to his house."

Alec looked at her nervously, but Max just nodded. "Then we need to get back to TC," she said.

She was going to leave Logan behind and let the fire consume him. There wouldn't be anything left of the man she'd known and loved. She was a widow who'd never even had the chance to be a girlfriend first, let alone a fiancée, let alone a bride, a wife.

She wanted to cry, thought she probably ought to, but she didn't have any more tears. She was empty.

* * *

_More soon... with an actual plot..._


	3. Chapter 3

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

_Alrighty… let's see if we can't get a bit of plot going…_

Chapter Three

* * *

As they neared TC and came in through the underground, Alec kept waiting for Max to come out of her stupor. It hadn't happened yet, but he knew it wouldn't take long for the first shock to wear off and, knowing Max, she would go straight from horror and shock to anger. It was how she worked. If anything wasn't working exactly how she liked, she went from zero to raging harpy in 1.2 seconds.

Not that he didn't think she had a valid reason at the moment. This was Logan after all. She loved him, had loved him, in her own screwed up sort of way, which to be fair was about all any of them were capable of. Manticore alum and healthy relationships didn't exactly go together.

How did a person learn to love if they'd never seen it in action or really felt it? Rachel had been throwing herself at him and he'd been such a Manticore robot, he'd barely even realized what was happening. His hormones had been working fine, but he just hadn't had any frame of reference to understand how to care about someone. He'd never seen it happen before. Rachel being kind simply because she was kind had been beyond him, and she'd had to teach him. With all of his training, it had taken a teenage girl to show him what his heart was for. Even more damning, she'd introduced him to his conscience.

Alec supposed that Max had been a little luckier in that department. She'd had her "family". They'd still been royally screwed up, but somehow, the '09ers had banded together, cared about each other, then Max had found others on the outside who'd taught her more, good and bad. After their escape, Manticore had made certain that the mistake would not be repeated. Alec and the others left behind were lucky they weren't all complete sociopaths.

Rachel hadn't been able to accept what Alec was, or at least she'd panicked at just the wrong time, his fault he knew, but once again Max had been luckier. She'd found Logan, someone who hadn't freaked even though he knew what Max was. He hadn't freaked, no matter who showed up at his door, including a smart-mouthed troublemaker or a skyscraper-tall dog-boy who acted more like a frisky puppy than anything else.

Logan had loved her. He'd stayed, persevered even though Max had infected him and nearly killed him. When _Max_ had been the one to freak, Logan had still remained steady, supported her, worried about her, loved her.

In that respect, Alec kind of understood. After all, he'd stayed in Seattle even though Max never did anything but tell him he was a selfish ass and a screw-up. Yet, she kept coming back to him for help and Alec kept helping. Maybe it was like he'd told Logan. It was just because she was hot.

But Logan was gone now and Max was... Alec couldn't describe his feelings as he'd watched her expression crumble. It was so much worse than when she'd told him about Ben. He hadn't expected it, but the sudden desire to protect and comfort her had been overwhelming. Max just... Max was Max. She didn't fall apart. She just didn't.

Alec knew how it felt though. He thought of Rachel and how she had been abruptly ripped away from him, and even now it was almost like a physical blow. It made him want to find a case of scotch, maybe two cases, and a cave to crawl into.

Max stopped at the door to the three bedroom apartment they shared with Joshua. "Alec..."

He held up a hand to stop her. "You don't have to say anything, Max." As a matter of fact, Alec would prefer it. He was a big fan of the strong, silent type when it came to emotional turmoil.

She shook her head. "You were right."

"About what?"

"I killed him. You said we shouldn't be with them, that we're a danger to them." Max's expression was blank, but her eyes... inside he could see that she was screaming. "You were right."

"Max, you didn't-"

Max made a weak gesture, cutting him off. "I killed him, Alec. I can't just ignore that."

Alec winced. Yeah, he'd thought Max being with Logan was dangerous and stupid. Yeah, if Logan hadn't been helping them, this probably wouldn't have happened. And yeah, Logan had died ugly. That didn't mean the blame should fall squarely on Max's shoulders.

"He was a big boy, Max. He knew what he was doing. Eyes Only was a dangerous job long before you showed up."

Max dropped her eyes to the floor. "We did this. _I_ did this. He never should have been caught up in Manticore business."

"Max, stop." Alec grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. He knew his grip was bruising, but he needed to be sure she was paying attention to him. "This is White's fault. You didn't do this."

"I might as well have pulled the trigger, Alec. I... Wait... what?" She looked genuinely confused.

"White, Max. I'd know his stink anywhere." He loosened his grip on her, but didn't drop his hands.

"Like... literally?"

"Yes," Alec said. He'd recognized White's scent the second he'd walked into the kitchen. The guy'd had help with him, but White had been there. Max hadn't really been coherent after they'd found the body. Alec wasn't surprised she hadn't noticed.

Fat tears again began to form in her eyes and she angrily wiped them away. "White," she said, like the word itself were a curse. "_Why_?" she asked incredulously. "Why would he do that?"

Alec blinked. They knew exactly why he'd done it. White was a murderous bastard who wanted them all dead and, to him, Logan was a collaborator. Alec shrugged. "He wants us dead, all of us, and Logan was easier to get to than we are."

The tears spilled over again and this time Max let them fall. Alec turned her and urged her into the apartment. Thankfully, no one else was home. She began to move toward the sofa, but Alec stopped her. "You should change."

"What for?"

They were both covered in blood. People hadn't been able to get away from them fast enough as they'd made their way back to Terminal City. One glance and they'd decided to take a different path after seeing two people caked in blood, one obviously in a state of shock and the other radiating anger and intimidation.

"You need to change your clothes before we go to Command," he insisted. He'd already called ahead to give them a heads up and knew they had a little time. Her shirt where she'd held Logan against her chest and her pants where she'd knelt were soaked through. Her face was smudged from wiping away tears with her bloodstained hands.

Max finally looked down at herself, then her eyes raked him from head to foot. Alec wasn't in much better shape.

He pushed her toward the bathroom and Max complied, so mechanical in her movements that she began to strip before he even had the door closed. A few seconds later he heard the shower start. He went to her room and gathered a fresh set of clothes for her and then set them inside the bathroom. From what he could see through the shower curtain, Max was simply standing beneath the water, not moving.

"You need to wash the blood off, Max," Alec stated the obvious. He saw her nod, and retreated outside the bathroom when he saw her pick up a bar of soap. Then he simply waited. He couldn't sit anywhere without transferring blood and if there was anything he didn't want right now, it was the lingering scent of Logan's blood in their apartment.

That thought pushed him forward and he entered the bathroom once again to gather up her soiled clothes. He found a plastic bag and shoved them inside. He would add his own as soon as he could and make sure they disappeared. It wasn't practical to throw away clothing that might be salvageable, especially when they had so little, but he couldn't risk that the scent might stay, or worse, that Max would have to be reminded whenever she saw what she'd been wearing.

The water stopped and he listened as Max dressed. She came out of the bathroom and looked around, uncertain of what she should do next.

"Sit," he ordered. "I'll just be a minute."

He waited to make sure she was headed for the sofa before he rounded up his own set of clothes and took the fastest, most thorough shower he'd ever had. He felt like he nearly had burns he'd scrubbed so ruthlessly. He came out of the bathroom to see Max sitting on the couch, staring out the window despite the fact that she couldn't see anything other than the dilapidated building next to theirs.

For a moment, Alec felt a huff of annoyance that Max was so out of it, but he quickly stifled the sentiment. He knew what he'd been like after Rachel and the bomb. He knew the hole it left in his gut. Max needed time to deal, so Alec sighed and made a mental note to forego the smart-aleck remarks for a while. No one wanted a comedy act when their world had been destroyed for the millionth time in their life. Max, especially, since she wasn't actually going to get a break to work through what had happened.

"Max?"

"I know," she said distantly. "We need to get to Command."

"I'm sorry," he replied, although he wasn't sure if he was apologizing for Logan's death or for the fact that the world hadn't come to a screeching halt so she could mourn properly, maybe both.

Max stood up and began walking toward the door, her stride more purposeful. Alec simply fell into step beside her and remained quiet as they headed back out of the building. Alec kept his arm around her shoulders, matching his gait to hers as they walked toward Command.

When they neared the door, she shrugged his arm off. He'd been waiting for it to happen, and accepted it with good grace. She might want to run and hide, but he understood she needed to reassert her Queen Bitch status now that they were back where she was The Leader of the Transgenic Nation.

Alec could only admire her strength. He'd been content to stay a zombie for weeks after Rachel's "death". It had been easier, cowardly even, but it had helped him survive psy-ops and form a new 494 that didn't care what happened to him or to anyone else Manticore sent him after.

Max walked into Command, shedding her sorrow as if it had never been there. Her face was like granite as she cast her eyes around the room and finally found Dix who was watching her worriedly. Alec had told Dix that Logan was gone when he'd called earlier, and everyone in the room was just waiting to see how Max was going to handle it before they said anything.

"Logan sent a file?" she asked, her tone clipped.

"Yes," the transhuman answered. "We're working on breaking the encryption now. It's not what he normally uses... used... It's not the same encryption as the normal files we get."

"You don't have it done yet?" she said through gritted teeth.

"We're working on it," Dix assured her. "It shouldn't be long."

Max nodded stiffly and crossed her arms. She tapped her foot impatiently for several seconds before finally giving in to the urge to pace. Alec doubted she really had a middle gear right now. She was either catatonic or she was in overdrive.

Unfortunately, her coping mechanism was making Dix and the others working at the computers very nervous. They were glancing at her anxiously instead of concentrating.

"Anything?" Max snapped, stopping briefly to stare over one of the hacker's shoulders. The poor kid jumped like he'd been shot, then shook his head and started typing again. He messed up whatever he was doing and had to backtrack with Max breathing down his neck all the while.

With a grunt of disgust, Max stood and began pacing again, her path directly behind the computer people, who visibly stiffened every time she drew near or stopped behind them to watch, or more accurately glare at the screens as if she could bend them to her will.

Alec sighed and stepped in front of Max on her circuit of the room. He grabbed her by the arm and quickly pulled her into a side room where there was a sofa and a TV and where she was out of the line of vision of the computer geeks.

"Quit scaring the tech people, Max," Alec admonished. "They're not used to dealing with freaked out field personnel. At least not in person."

"I need to know what Logan sent," she forced out, beginning to pace again, though the area was smaller and she didn't have much room. "He died for it."

"They'll figure it out. Now calm down or we'll take care of this without you," he warned.

She whipped around to face him. "You can't."

"Whatever this is, Logan said it was urgent. Nobody's sending us flowers and candy, so that means we're in danger and, as you said, he died for whatever this is." He couldn't help a smirk, even though it visibly annoyed her. "I like myself too much to let you scare the nerds into screwing up and getting us all killed because you can't keep it together." He knew it was cruel, but it was the truth. Logan was dead. He wanted to make sure Logan was the only casualty.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then nodded, working to calm herself. "You're right," she finally said.

"Wow. Where's a recorder when you need one," Alec quipped.

Max's mouth quirked up just barely on one side, but it quickly slipped and she sagged to the couch. "If only we'd gotten there sooner," she said, desolate.

Alec shifted from one foot to the other. What was he supposed to say to that? It was true. If they'd been there earlier, maybe they could have saved him. And maybe if someone had stopped Manticore back at the beginning, none of this would've happened at all. None of the transgenics would be alive in the first place to cause all this trouble. All the people killed on their "missions" would still be around. Rachel would be alive.

Alec sighed. Well, if this wasn't the most depressing day in a long time, he didn't know what was. He walked to the sofa and fell onto it beside Max, shoulder to shoulder. He had no idea how to help Max grieve. Logan had constantly and vocally reminded Alec of what he really was, a sociopath, and sociopaths just weren't great with this kind of thing.

Kill something, con someone, lie bold-faced… any of that he could manage in his sleep. But this… Max… They'd come to a sort of truce after she'd told him about Ben, but he'd just never quite had the knack of getting along with Max, especially when times were tough. Which meant pretty much all the time.

Alec bumped his shoulder against hers and said the only thing he could think of, useless though it might be. "Logan was a decent guy. I'm sorry, Max."

She didn't respond and Alec assumed she just didn't want to talk to him, but finally she nodded, her lips pursed. "I'm sorry, too." She turned her head toward him. "Thanks... for... you know."

"Sure."

They heard jogging steps coming toward them and they both looked up. Dix appeared in the doorway. "We've got it open. You're gonna want to see this."

Before they had a chance to respond, Dix was gone. Alec stood and held out a hand to help Max to do the same. She just looked at it for a second as if his hand had some sort of meaning, in and of itself. Awkwardly, Alec began to withdraw it, but she suddenly grasped it and pulled herself up. She let him go and headed toward the door, resolute, but moving like she was exhausted. He supposed she was. The adrenaline was definitely gone now and he knew they were both feeling it. They'd already been tired after a day of trying to repair an ancient sewer line. Had that only been a couple of hours ago?

Alec walked into the next room, side by side with Max. This time, no one was paying any attention to her, or the possibility that she might bite their heads off. They were staring at a bank of computer screens.

"What is it?" Max asked.

The screens were showing pictures of something that looked vaguely like a spring-loaded syringe, but not. If Alec had to guess he'd say it was an enlargement of something under an electron microscope and the thing was clearly biological. Several other screens were showing various diagrams, some of which were DNA sequences. Dix was sitting at a keyboard, scrolling through several type-written pages.

"It's a virus," Mole said, appearing at Alec's side.

"Max's virus?" he asked.

"Wouldn'ta called you in here for something that doesn't make a crap of a difference now that Logan's dead, now would we?" Mole growled.

Alec just looked up at the scaly, cigar-chewing transhuman. "You're the soul of comfort you know that?" He shook his head. "Subtle, too."

"The egghead's dead and I gave up on subtle when I turned into a six foot lizard," Mole shot back. "Deal with it."

"What. Is. It?" Max demanded through clenched teeth.

"It's a DNA specific virus," Dix said before anyone else could interrupt.

"Who's it for?" Alec asked.

"Not who," Dix answered. "What. This virus is designed for one thing and one thing only."

"Spit it out," Mole ordered.

"Feline DNA. The virus will kill any of us that have even a hint of cat in our gene sequence."

* * *

_More soon..._


	4. Chapter 4

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

_Sorry, but this one's gonna be shorter. Manticore (aka my boss) strikes again._

Chapter Four

* * *

Silence fell over the room. The virus would kill anyone with feline DNA. Alec felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, and it occurred to him how very human _and_ cat-like the response was. If he really were a cat, he'd be hissing, fur standing on end, deciding whether to fight it out or run. He wasn't a cat though, not totally anyway, so he held his tongue and stared at the screens.

"But... that's nearly every one of us," Max whispered.

"Pretty sure that's the idea, princess," Mole observed dryly. "We got all kinds of weird stuff, but just about everybody has some cat. The bastards went with what would give 'em the highest body count."

Alec shifted his feet and realized he'd unconsciously moved to touch his shoulder to Max's. For a moment, he considered moving away, but instead chose to set his hand at her back. She was looking as spooked as he felt.

"What else does the file say?" Alec asked.

"It'll take some time to go through it," Dix said, still staring at the type-written pages, "but so far I don't see anything about a delivery system or how it's transmitted. It looks like we don't have all of the info anyway. There are some parts of the file that didn't manage to transmit before..." He glanced anxiously toward Max, but finally said, "This written section cuts off right in the middle of a sentence and the rest is corrupted. I'll have to see if there's anything I can salvage."

"Great," Max bit out.

"I assume the rest of Logan's things are gone?" Dix winced as he said Logan's name.

"Wiped his whole system," Alec answered for her. "If he had backups hidden somewhere we don't know about 'em."

"It say anything about a vaccine?" Max asked doubtfully. Alec could practically feel her vibrating with tension where they were touching.

"Don't see anything yet," Dix answered.

Mole snorted. "Ten bucks says there ain't one."

"No bet," Alec replied with a shake of his head.

The room fell silent again except for the clicking of computer keys as Dix and a couple of the other computer guys continued to work on the file, trying to recover what they could. Alec couldn't help staring at the DNA strands. It all looked so harmless, just a few diagrams on a screen, but all Alec could see were years of genetic work and years of training and discipline that when added together meant his life was complete crap.

Suddenly, Alec went very still. He cocked his head to the side, listening intently. Someone started to say something and Alec immediately cut them off. "Quiet," he barked. Alec closed his eyes and focused again on the sound, while the others seemed to do the same.

He listened for several seconds, then his eyes snapped open as he recognized what he was hearing. Alec strode up the stairs and into Max's office so he could see out the window. Several others followed and he knew Max was at his side, but he was too intent on the scene outside.

A helicopter was approaching, making a beeline straight for Terminal City. The shortage of rich people who could afford to fly, the scarcity of fuel in general, and the problems involved in travel while the country was under martial law made planes and helicopters a rarity.

Alec quickly realized he wasn't the only curious one. Transgenics were warily coming out of several nearby buildings, most of them visibly armed in case this was the beginning of an attack. They'd been waiting ever since the siege started for the military to come in guns blazing.

The helicopter slowed as it reached TC and finally stopped to hover over a large central area that was sheltered from the outside world by buildings on all sides. They'd started using it as a kind of town square and rallying point. As soon as the helicopter was in place, it started to rain. Only it wasn't water. On all sides, the helicopter was spraying a fine mist down onto the people and buildings below. The helicopter immediately started moving upwind, allowing the mist to float in a cloud back over Terminal City.

Transgenics started dropping like flies.

Anyone within Alec's line of sight who was outdoors or who'd been hiding just inside the doorways where they could watch, as soon as the mist reached them, they fell where they stood. It was like a wave. Those closest fell first, then others farther and farther away moving outward. Two transhumans remained standing as the wave of death parted around them, and Alec could only guess that they were lucky enough to be free of any feline DNA.

"No," he heard Max whisper. It was enough to break him free of his shock and spur him into action.

Alec ran out of the office, shoving others out of the way to get back into the main room. "I need a broadcast!" he bellowed to the few people who were still standing below near the equipment. One of the first things they set up was a general broadcast system so they could reach everyone in TC at once. "Code 6-Bravo. No one goes outside. Seal exterior doors and windows if necessary, then get out through the sewers. Everyone with feline DNA leaves Seattle _now_."

Dix was still sitting downstairs staring at the screens showing the virus and the DNA sequences. He immediately abandoned it to get to the radios. Within moments the signal was given to go to ground, with the added orders not to go out in the open.

For a moment, not even a full second, Alec's eyes met Max's and for once in her life, Max appeared to be in complete agreement with him. There was no time for arguing. Their people were dying and looking to them for some sort of guidance. They had no choice but to step up and make the hard decisions.

They hurried down the stairs, followed by the others who'd gone to the window to see. Dix hurried toward them. "What's happening?" he asked.

"The intel was too late. They've released the virus already. We're all dead if we stay here." Alec looked around him to all of the people who had come here for safety. Now they were all grim-faced, shaking their heads at how easily their lives could be torn apart yet again. "Everybody needs to scatter. Keep an eye on the news. If Max and I come up with something, we'll make sure it gets broadcast somehow."

He never even considered splitting up with Max. He didn't bother to ask for his reasoning. He just wasn't going to leave her, especially not now.

"We think this thing is airborne?" Mole asked.

"No clue. Better get as far from here as you can. Stay upwind," Max ordered. As one, the transgenics simply nodded and turned, jogging away toward a closed walkway that would lead to the next building and the nearest sewer entrance. Only Mole and Dix remained.

"You two have any cat running around?" Max asked.

"Not a drop," Mole said proudly.

"Great. You're in charge of this dump 'til we figure something out."

"When I said I wanted to be in charge, I didn't mean of a morgue," Mole protested, but nodded nevertheless.

"Dix?" Alec asked, ignoring Mole. Every second they remained was dangerous.

"No feline DNA."

"Work on the virus. Something tells me that wasn't the only batch they cooked up."

"Already on it," he said and strode back to his place in front of the computers.

"I'll go round up any of the others who are kitty-free," Mole grunted, already moving toward the door, leaving Max and Alec alone. "We'll make sure everybody gets out who can." Mole paused before opening the door, waiting for them to leave the other way before he risked exposing them.

"You ready?" Alec asked her. They had to get out. TC had been a contaminated cesspool before, but White and his people had made sure that now it was unlivable even for them.

Max just looked at him. "No."

Alec nodded and held out his hand toward her. After a second's hesitation, she took it. Alec gave her hand a gentle reassuring squeeze. "Let's get going then."

* * *

_More soon..._


	5. Chapter 5

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

_Sorry, guys! The site wouldn't let me load this yesterday! Anyway... where were we? Ah yes, Max and Alec making a run for it..._

Chapter Five

* * *

Alec stood in front of the restaurant and eyed the little dive skeptically. It had a sign outside bragging they had the best burgers in three counties. Alec had some serious doubts about that, but at least it was food.

They didn't have anything more than the clothes on their backs and Alec only had what money he'd been carrying when they'd skipped town. It was a decent amount because Alec never liked to go without, but even that would only last so long. The most pressing issue, however, was food. No matter what other problems they were facing, transgenics had fast metabolisms that, for optimal performance, required being fed on a regular basis. Their stomachs didn't seem to care that they were in a dumpy little town in the middle of nowhere. Well, his stomach at least. Max wasn't talking.

They were making their way south toward California. The cities there were under lockdown much like Seattle, but a big city was the easiest place to get lost. No one really looked at anyone else. No one really knew or cared about their neighbors or the people around them in restaurants or stores or lines. As long as you kept your head down and kept moving, a big city was the best place to hide in plain sight.

They'd managed to get out of Seattle without too much trouble, but there hadn't been any chance to find proper transportation. The motorcycles were contaminated and Logan's car was the wrong way from where they needed to be. They'd stayed in the sewers as long as they could, always working their way upwind. Once they were aboveground they'd stolen a car that Alec could only hope would make it as far as the next decent-sized city where they could ditch it for another.

After one last cursory glance at the restaurant's shabby exterior, Alec opened the door and ushered Max inside. She pointed toward a corner table and Alec headed for the counter to order. The place had a few other customers, but wasn't too busy, which was fine with him. They just needed a quick lunch and then they'd be on their way.

Alec wove his way through the chairs toward the back of the diner, set his hands on the counter and gave the tired looking, middle-aged woman standing behind it a friendly smile. He might feel like a ship lost at sea, _again_, but he had to keep paddling and that meant smiling at the lunch lady who was eyeing a stranger in town with suspicion. "Hi. What's on the menu today?"

She sniffed. "We got burgers or burgers."

"Guess, we'll go with burgers then," he said, still smiling pleasantly. "Two please." He pointed toward a couple of bags of chips. "Those too and something to drink, if you've got it." He just wanted something fast and filling so they could get back on the road.

The woman didn't move. "Let's see the cash."

"As if I would dare try to run out without paying for the best burgers in three counties?" Alec asked incredulously, eyes wide and innocent.

The woman, whose ancient nametag read _Maggie_, just snorted, although he could see a definite twinkle in her eye. "A pretty face and a smooth tongue don't mean you got anything in your wallet, sonny."

"And here I've been trying to skate by on my good looks all these years," Alec said, all mock-sadness as he pulled out a couple of bills and handed them over.

"You need any more life lessons, just let me know. It's all I give that's free."

Alec grinned, though it was the last thing he felt like doing. "Thanks for the offer, but I've had plenty already."

Something must've shown on his face because the woman lost some of her playfulness, and started looking at him with a bit more Mother Hen in her expression. Alec quickly looked away from her. He didn't need her sympathy right now, or want to see it. He looked toward Max who was staring ahead obliviously, no doubt seeing anything but the dismal little diner.

The woman bumped his hand with a tray to bring his attention back to her. "Here ya go, hon. Eat up."

"Thanks." Alec took the tray and was even less certain about the "best burgers in three counties" sign as he carried the food toward Max. The two wrapped sandwiches had clearly been sitting out for longer than he wanted to contemplate. Luckily, food poisoning wasn't an issue for transgenics. It would annoy him, but it wouldn't kill him, which was about all he could ask at the moment.

He set the tray in front of Max and took his seat across from her. His appearance seemed to snap her out of whatever mental place she'd been and she looked down at the food as if she wasn't quite sure what it was.

"Eat," Alec ordered. "You're grumpy when you're hungry."

Max didn't say anything, just half-heartedly unwrapped the burger and bit into it as Alec picked up his own and did the same.

"If this is the best burger in three counties, I think we definitely need to leave town," Alec observed.

Max simply nodded and kept chewing on the tough, half-cooked sandwich.

"You think this is even beef?" he asked, hoping for some form of response, something, anything. He was tired of listening to himself talk. He'd been doing it since they left Seattle. "I bet this is goat or something. Kinda stringy, though. Might be horse."

Max just let out a short puff of air, then went back to chewing on her burger. She opened her bag of chips and silently worked her way through a few.

"Chips any good?"

She shrugged.

Alec sighed. "How do you feel about the state of the economy, Max? I know the Pulse has put a real damper on the world market, but the recovery efforts, especially in some of the European markets seem to be working."

Max stopped chewing long enough to stare at him before she returned to her burger.

"What about paint colors? I've been thinking about a nice mossy green for the apartment. We could get curtains to match. Of course, that may not be useful now, but still…"

"Alec?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

Alec snorted, but did as she asked. He opened his own bag of chips and crunched his way through them loudly just to see if he could keep Max from wandering back into whatever ugly set of thoughts she'd been thinking.

As he ate, he kept one eye on Max and the other on the guy at the table next to them. He was a big, bearded yokel in flannel and denim, his beady eyes telling Alec he was smarter than he looked and he'd been staring at Max with just a little too much interest for the last couple of minutes.

The man's eyes suddenly grew wide and he sat back in his seat, raising a finger to point at Max. "I do know you! You're her. You're that freak!"

Alec felt the entire room around him go silent and all eyes turned toward them. For several seconds, both sides remained immobile, each judging what the other was going to do next. Then, just as easily, the spell was broken.

Alec shoved the last of his burger in his mouth and stood, his chair scraping loudly in the silence. Max quickly got to her feet as well. Unfortunately, they weren't quite fast enough. As soon as they started to rise, the guy pulled a gun, an ancient but no less lethal revolver.

"Maggie, call the cops!" the man shouted. "It's one of those freaks! She musta got outta her kennel in Seattle!"

Alec saw Maggie head for the phone behind the counter and guessed she was going to teach him another life lesson whether he liked it or not. He focused again on the man in front of him. "Look, pal, we don't want any trouble."

His words had the opposite effect. The guy was reminded Alec had been eating with Max, which meant he was probably one of the "freaks" too. Mr. Revolver promptly started shifting the gun back and forth between them trying to decide who the bigger threat was.

"Look," Alec said again. "We just wanted something to eat and now we'll be going. No one needs to get hurt."

"Shut up!" the man shouted. He backed up nervously, bumping into the chair he'd been sitting in and knocking it over with a clatter, all the while still aiming the gun at them. "Don't move! Either of you!"

"We're just gonna walk out of here. That's all," Max said, edging toward the door.

Immediately the man fired. Max spun, crashing into Alec. He caught her and eased her to the floor, then turned back toward the man. Alec blurred, snatching the weapon out of his hand before punching the man viciously. He really hoped he'd broken the guy's jaw. He'd been wanting to hit something for what felt like days.

Screams broke out, but the restaurant fell deadly silent as Alec cast a furious glance around the room at the shocked patrons, the man's gun in his hand. "Everybody, just stay where you are and we'll leave," he said calmly. Alec glanced around one more time and put the man's gun in his pocket. No use leaving a weapon behind for them to take a potshot at them as they left.

Alec backed up toward Max and knelt beside her, still keeping an eye on the other customers. She was bleeding from her right side, but Alec didn't have time to get a good look. Even now he could hear the wail of approaching sirens. He lifted her in his arms, and felt her hot breath against his neck as she hissed in pain.

"Sorry, Maxie, but we gotta go."

It was briefly distracting how light she felt in his arms, how delicate. Max had no problems fighting him tooth and nail. She was tough both physically and mentally, but at the moment, she just felt… fragile.

Alec blurred out of the restaurant and toward their car, parked around the corner. He carefully set Max in the passenger seat before hurrying to the driver's side. The car was a piece of crap with no acceleration, but that was what made it so unremarkable. Alec drove down the road until he was out of sight of the diner, then pulled into a parking lot just as the police flew by. He parked long enough to ensure all the police cars that were en route had already passed, then simply pulled back out into the roadway and left at a sedate pace.

"Max?" Alec glanced toward the passenger seat where she was leaning to one side, her hand to her side. Her lips were pressed in a thin line and she didn't seem to have heard him. "Max," he said more forcefully.

"I'm fine," she finally answered through clenched teeth. "Barely grazed me."

"You sure?" Her hand covering the wound was smeared with blood that continued to ooze down and soak into her jeans.

"Yeah, I'm sure," she said tightly.

Alec gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. "Just hold on. I'll find us some place we can hole up."

Max nodded and Alec fought not to be annoyed. Two little sentences and she'd gone back to playing the silent game. She'd barely said more than two words since leaving Terminal City. He was trying not to take it personally, but Alec was really starting to get fidgety. Graze or not, Max bleeding beside him wasn't going to help.

Alec _needed_ her to talk. Sitting and letting his mind wander while Max stared out the car window was getting him nowhere good. They hadn't had any word from any of the others since they'd left and their calls weren't being answered. They'd slept in the car, so they hadn't been able to see any TV or get to any computers and the crappy car they were in didn't have a radio.

All Alec could see was the wave of death rippling outward as the virus spread through Terminal City. Alec had no way of knowing who was dead and who'd made it out. Worst of all, he didn't know about Joshua. He didn't know whether the big guy was all canine or whether Daddy had mixed just enough feline in there to get Joshua killed if he hadn't managed to hightail it.

Once Alec started thinking about those deaths, others followed. Brain, Biggs, CeCe, Annie, Rachel, Logan. After that came face after face, permanently etched into his memory of people he'd killed. A photographic memory was a blessing and a curse to an assassin. He'd only had to see a picture once to know who his target was and recognize him anywhere. And to _his_ dying day he would remember their faces as they died.

So Alec had to keep his mind occupied with other things, be it nice mundane, boring things, like wondering whether Max snored when she slept, or crazy it's-gonna-get-me-killed things, like running from the police after taking down a diner's homegrown security. It didn't matter as long as he didn't have time to think about the path that had led them here.

They'd been trapped at Manticore. They'd been trapped again in Terminal City. And now? Now they couldn't even eat in a crappy out of the way diner without it turning into a disaster. It wasn't a _place_ that was keeping them penned anymore. It was _them_. They were transgenics and they were just screwed.

Alec shook his head to clear it and forced himself to concentrate on driving and nothing else. He knew it wouldn't work long. He needed a real distraction. Alec didn't just like to talk. He _needed_ to talk.

Max… She hadn't returned to the sleepwalking state she'd been in right after they found Logan, but she wasn't interacting either. She just sat and brooded over what had happened to Logan, and now all the others in TC. Alec just didn't know if he could take the silence much longer.

* * *

Max didn't know if she could take the silence much longer. Her brain, it just wouldn't shut up. It kept replaying the same scenes over and over. The last time she'd talked to Logan, she'd been abrupt with him on the phone. She'd been up to her neck in problems, Alec had been covered in sewage and Max had cut Logan off, telling him she would be there as soon as she could and bugging her was just slowing her down. Then the scene instantly shifted to Joshua's old house. She heard Alec call out from the next room. She walked into the kitchen and saw the bloody mess that was all that remained of Logan.

In short, she'd been a bitch and Logan was dead.

And now who knew how many others were dead.

And Alec, who never shut up, was silent as the tomb other than his attempt to draw her out in the diner. He'd clammed up again after she snapped at him to shut up. Of all times for Alec to do what she asked, this was the one he picked. Despite what she'd said, she just wanted him to talk, about anything, about everything, about what a piece of crap the car was, about what a pain it had been sleeping in the car the night before. He'd given her the back seat to stretch out in while he'd had to sleep sitting up in the front. Even then, she'd wished he would talk. She hadn't slept a wink and she didn't think he had either, although he'd pretended.

Max sighed and instantly regretted it. Her side was on fire.

"Max?" Alec asked immediately. He might not be saying anything, but he was watching her like a hawk. She couldn't actually catch him doing it, but he seemed to be aware of everything about her.

"You need me to help?"

"What?"

"Into the room."

"What? I..." Max looked up and realized they'd stopped. They were parked in front of what looked like an ancient rundown motel, all of the doors on the exterior facing the road.

Alec was turned toward her, a worried crease between his brows as he looked at her. "I already paid for the room and I need to patch you up, so… either you get out of the car, or I help you get out of the car."

Max blinked in shock. Alec had to have gone inside to pay for the room and get the key. She hadn't even noticed.

Max blinked again and Alec was gone. The car was empty and his door was closed.

"Max," Alec said, barely a whisper, and she realized he was beside her. He'd opened her door and was leaning down toward her. "Come on, Maxie. Let's get you inside."

Max felt like she was caught in some sort of haze, like nothing was real, like there was no way that the past two days had actually happened. Logan was alive, Terminal City was still up and running, the others were fine. She and Alec were just on a supply run. That was all this was.

Max gasped when Alec reached into the car and picked her up. Within seconds she was inside the room and lying on the bed.

"Max, I'm pretty sure I warned you to keep pressure on your side," Alec chided.

Max frowned. She'd clearly missed something again. Maybe Alec had been talking all this time and she just hadn't been listening. Next thing she knew, Alec had taken her hand and was pressing it to her side, holding it down with his own.

"Max, quit screwing around," Alec said, for the first time a hint of anger showing. "I gotta go find some first aid supplies, but I can't leave you here alone if you're gonna space out and bleed all over the bed. There's only one, so I gotta sleep there too, ya know."

"Ok," Max finally managed.

"Well, I am totally reassured," she heard Alec mutter. Nevertheless, she heard the door open and the car start outside.

The sound of the engine faded and she distantly wondered how far Alec would have to go to find supplies. The pain in her side had died to a dull throb. She was sure it was nothing more than a graze.

Max's hand dropped away from her side and fell to the bed.

* * *

_Next chapter, we'll get back to what's going on in TC. More soon, site willing..._


	6. Chapter 6

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

_Hmm... Not so many reviews last chapter... I'll put my thinking cap on and see if I can fix it. In the meantime, since yesterday's chapter was late, here's a new one to get us back on schedule._

Chapter Six

* * *

Max awoke to find she was sitting up and Alec's arms were around her, one hand splayed wide against her back. Her nose was pressed into his collarbone, her face turned toward him so that she felt entirely surrounded by him, drowning in his scent which was how she knew it was Alec holding her and not someone else. She could always recognize the warm, crisp scent of him.

Max tried to wake herself up properly and work her way out of the fog that seemed to be hovering around her. He shifted her again, the hand not against her back slipping beneath her t-shirt to brush against her skin.

"Stop," she mumbled, annoyed at the slur in her voice. "Lemme 'lone."

"It's ok, Maxie," he soothed. "It's gonna be fine. Just work with me here."

Alec slid his hand further under her shirt and she felt it shift upward, the suddenly cool air meeting her skin a sharp contrast to his warm breath against her cheek. She felt him grip the hem of her shirt and tug it upward impatiently.

"No!" Max formed a fist, reared back and punched him, putting all of her weight behind it.

Her eyes focused just in time to see Alec fall back. Unfortunately, he hadn't let go of her shirt so when he landed on the ground he pulled her shirt with him, awkwardly ripping it off over her head, leaving Max in just her bra.

Also unfortunately, Max didn't seem to have the strength to stay where she was and fell forward pulled by the shirt, landing in a jumble on the floor, half sprawled on top of him. She awkwardly scrambled back and was forced to lean against the bed she'd just fallen off of.

"You done?" Alec demanded, his voice almost a growl.

"I'll kill you if you come near me again," Max snapped back with more vigor than she was actually feeling.

"That's nice, Max. Real nice." He wadded up the shirt he was still holding and threw it at her head. She batted it away and glared at him. "Just so you know," Alec rubbed his jaw, "I'm getting really tired of being on the receiving end of your fist."

"That's what you get for trying to feel me up while I'm asleep, you son of a-" While she was talking, Max crossed her arms over her breasts and was immediately reminded of her injured side. She'd banged it when she backed up into the bed and it was throbbing. She set one hand over the wound and felt a bandage. She could feel another on her back. The bullet must have gone all the way through. "Oh."

Alec rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Oh." He sat up and got back to his feet, still rubbing his stubbled jaw. "You wanna take care of it yourself, be my guest."

"Sorry," she mumbled.

"What was that?" Alec cocked his head to one side as if listening.

"Sorry," Max ground out, although louder.

"How generous. Tell that to my teeth," he replied snidely.

"I said I was sorry," she snapped. "What more do you want?"

Alec smirked and Max had a sudden desire to hit him again. Her jeans must have been ruined as well because she was wearing a pair of shorts she'd never seen before. She gave him a glare knowing he'd been the one to change her. "You gonna take care of my side or what?" she asked.

Alec's smirk, if anything, grew more pronounced. "This is billionth time I've changed your dressing. The only reason I put your shirt back on was I figured you'd punch me if you woke up half-naked. So glad I made the effort."

Max blinked at that, wide-eyed. "Seriously?"

"Oh yeah," Alec said as he walked toward the mirror over the sink and flipped on the light so he could examine his quickly bruising face. "Bullet wounds and field dressings are comedy gold. I was thinking about forgetting the life on the run thing for life on the stage."

Max stood, feeling oddly weak in the knees and frowned when Alec appeared beside her, one hand on her elbow to steady her. She shrugged him off, then walked toward the large mirror Alec had just been using. She peeled the bandage back to see that the skin was already well on its way to healing, then she looked up.

She was blonde.

Her dark hair wasn't just a little sun-bleached. She was _blonde_.

Max spun around to face Alec and was immediately dizzy. At the same instant she realized she was falling, Alec was there. He lifted her in one smooth movement and carried her back to the bed. He didn't lay her down, however. He sat her on the edge and kept his hands on her upper arms.

As her eyes focused again, she saw Alec kneeling in front of her, his expression worried. "Max, you with me?"

"Yeah," she said, not liking how breathless she sounded.

"Next time you tell me it's a graze, I'll remember that it actually means you're trying to bleed out," Alec said, anger slipping into his tone. "Really wish I'd known that earlier."

"I... what?"

"Not a graze, Max. You've been dead to the world for two days."

This time Max really looked at him and recognized the worn, frazzled air that he was wearing. He looked exhausted. He was wearing the same clothes he had been, but they were seriously rumpled. His hair was sticking up in all directions as if he'd been running his hand through it repeatedly and she realized the stubble was new, too. He'd been clean shaven when they left Terminal City. As she watched, he finally released her and sat back, just dropping to the floor where he was and running a hand tiredly over his face.

Max felt a distinct pang of guilt. They'd watched so many friends die. All they'd had left was each other and she'd promptly tried to check out on him.

"M'I gonna make it?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"You wanna tell me why I'm a blonde?"

"You should watch the news," he said simply.

"What does that have to do with it?"

"Just watch the news. Then I need to cut your hair."

That reminded her why she'd been mad in the first place. "You dyed it while I was passed out?" Max stood again, better prepared this time for the hint of dizziness that accompanied her change in altitude and the dull throb in her side. She walked toward the mirror and was once again greeted by a stranger. She just didn't look… right. She felt like she was wearing a wig like she had for some of Logan's Eyes Only missions.

Logan. Who was dead. She'd forgotten it for a minute.

"I, uh," Alec walked up and stood beside her, also looking at her in the mirror, for once genuinely uncomfortable, "I set you on the counter and used the sink."

"You couldn't wait until I was conscious?" Max snapped.

Alec scratched at the back of his head, an embarrassed grimace on his face. "Would you believe I was bored?"

Max felt her fingers curling into claws, the urge to attack growing by the second.

"Max, calm down." Alec began backing away. "It needed to be done and I didn't know when we might have to make a break for it."

"I'll calm down after I kill you for manhandling me," Max bit out through clenched teeth.

"Do I get to be pissed off, too?" Alec demanded, his mask of pleasantness dropping, replaced by genuine anger. "Cause I'm the one who's been sitting here with you and going out to get supplies and kept us from getting picked up while you were down for the count." He threw his hands up in defeat. "You're _welcome_, by the way."

"I-"

"Don't bother. I need a shower. You watch the news."

Alec turned the TV on as he passed it before gathering a few things and disappearing into the bathroom, the door closing with a determined click.

The TV was tuned to a 24 hour news channel and it took Max a moment to realize what she was seeing.

Bodies. Row after row of bodies.

A group of tranhumans was carrying out body after body and laying each one out beside the next, all in clear view of the cameras.

Max sat on the edge of the bed as the video switched to a replay. One of the news crews permanently stationed outside TC had video of the helicopter hovering over the center of their sanctuary and proceeding to spray the area as if they were spraying to keep down the mosquito population.

Various experts came on to try to explain what had happened to the transgenics as well as who had instigated the attack. Several hate groups were claiming responsibility, but a policeman had held a press conference to say that none of the claims appeared to be legitimate.

Max hadn't realized how long she'd been sitting there until Alec reappeared, his hair damp, wearing the same jeans he had been, but a fresh t-shirt. He sat down beside her and, for once, she could see he had no inclination to talk, just stared at the television.

The video changed back to a view at the front gates where the bodies were being laid out. Men. Women. Children. Too many. So many who hadn't escaped in time.

"It killed every housecat for ten blocks around Terminal City, fifteen if they were downwind," Alec said flatly. "The animal rights groups are already arranging protests."

"Animal rights," Max scoffed.

"Yeah."

Max watched as Mole walked from between the buildings carrying a small boy, maybe six years old. He set the boy down with the others, then walked away from the camera. There was a cut in the film and then he reappeared with yet another body, this one older, a male about Alec's age.

After that the video changed to a skinny, gray-haired woman. She was holding a clearly deceased cat in her arms, half of its body hidden inside the old lady's frayed sweater where she'd wrapped it around the animal. The band across the bottom of the screen read, "Gladys Singleton, Pet Owner." She stood in front of the camera with wide, almost crazed eyes. "_Whoever did this has to pay! All of my babies are dead. Every one of them. Almost thirty cats, k- kittens_," she stammered, seemingly in shock. "_What kind of monster would do such a thing? They killed my _babies!"

The video changed to a man and woman sitting at a desk in a studio.

"_There has been no official word from the presumed leader of the transgenics. It is not known whether she also died in the recent attack, although there have been unsubstantiated reports of sightings outside of Seattle_."

The news very kindly had a picture of Max up as a visual aid. It looked like it had been taken during the Jam Pony incident. If they'd been showing that ever since the story hit the air, then it was no wonder Max had been recognized. The news people were kindly reminding the public over and over exactly what she looked like.

"Like I said," Alec turned toward her, picking up a stray tendril of her long, now blonde hair and bouncing it with his fingers, "I need to cut your hair." Rather than wait for a response he simply stood and grabbed a chair sitting at a little table by the window. He brought it over and set it in front of her. Max shifted wordlessly, her eyes still glued to the pictures on the screen. They'd gone back to video of the bodies being laid out.

Alec disappeared briefly and returned with a towel which he wrapped around her shoulders. The feel of the rough cotton startled her. She'd forgotten she was bare from the waist up except for her bra, and to her surprise Alec didn't seem to be any more aware than she.

He walked to the sink and soaked another towel. This one he brought back and wrapped around her hair to dampen it. Some of the water soaked through the towel around her shoulders and she shivered as it worked its way down her skin.

"Sorry," Alec murmured. He sailed the towel back toward the sink where it landed with a wet slap.

The news was showing a crew of transhumans and a couple of apparently cat-free Xs now, all with shovels. They were digging a mass grave. They dug and dug until finally they seemed to decide there was enough space and began moving the bodies lying on the ground into the hole, all under the watchful eyes of the news cameras. Max saw one of the Xs, a tall fair-haired young woman, pause, looking down at the body of a male X-series in front of her. She seemed stunned and her hand flew to her mouth.

Some movement must have drawn her attention to the news crew because her head snapped up and her eyes zeroed in on the camera. In a blur, she flew toward the fence, her expression a furious snarl.

Someone else, a transhuman Max didn't recognize, broke into a run on an intercept course, and caught the woman only a few feet from the crew. Max had no doubt the X-5 would have been up and over the fence and on the crew before they could react.

The young woman strained against the transhuman holding her back, desperate to exact some sort of vengeance. "I hope you're happy," she screamed, tears streaming down her contorted face. "We broke out of one rat hole and we were ok livin' in this one, just so long as you left us alone. We've been _beggin'_ you to leave us alone and you couldn't even do _that_."

"Stop, Bagger. Stop. This won't help," the transhuman holding her said, having to use all of his strength to keep her back.

"They killed him!" she spat.

"What... what was his name?" the reporter asked nervously, not too brightly in Max's opinion.

This time the transhuman looked at the camera crew, obviously thinking the same thing Max had, and the reporter actually backed away. Not surprising when they were being stared down by a six foot scaled _something_ with fangs. "All the kid had was a number until he made it here," the transhuman growled. "You didn't want to know him then and you don't deserve to know his name now."

The camera zoomed in as the young woman stopped fighting and sagged in the transhuman's arms, giving in to this new grief. Her tears became sobs and she bowed her head. The man holding her relaxed his grip and turned her, walking back toward the others. She knelt beside the body that had set all of this off. She set her hand against his chest, weeping audibly. The gesture lasted only a few moments before she stood, hefting the body in her arms, and walked toward the grave.

Max closed her eyes. She couldn't bear to watch the girl hand the body to the transhuman standing down in the pit to place her friend next to the others awaiting burial.

Max felt like her heart was ready to burst it hurt so badly. She wasn't the only one who'd lost someone she loved. She wasn't the only widow.

Alec stepped in front of her and shut the TV off. Apparently, he, too, had had enough. She didn't want to think about how much of it he'd been forced to watch while she was out. It made more sense now that he'd dyed her hair. He might have given her the practical reasons, but she knew it had been something to do other than watch their friends dying over and over again.

Alec began to thread his fingers through her hair. His hands were steady and sure as he worked out the tangles with a comb he must've found when he bought the rest of his supplies.

"Don't worry," he said quietly, breaking the heavy silence of the room around them. "I was a hairdresser for a couple of weeks."

"On a job?"

"No, Max," Alec said tiredly. "I was cutting hair on my vacation. Manticore liked to give us a few weeks off in the spring to unwind."

Max didn't respond, just listened to the tiny sound of the comb running through her hair. She closed her eyes and tried not to flinch the first time she heard the scissors open. Alec had set his comb aside and his fingers slid through her hair, moving it this way and that. She felt it the first time he snipped a piece away. She instinctively opened her mouth to protest, but he didn't pause, just thrust his fingers back into her hair and she felt the gentle tug as he repeated the process over and over, occasionally picking up the comb again to straighten her hair and gauge his progress.

The sensation was hypnotic, soothing, as he moved around her, carding his fingers through her increasingly short locks. She could feel the warmth radiating from him he was standing so close as he worked his way clockwise from one side to the other, finally ending in front of her. He surprised her when he moved closer, straddling one of her legs, standing with his knees brushing either side of her thigh.

"Sorry. Don't have my fancy chair," he explained distractedly, still concentrating on his task, those warm fingers working their magic on her scalp, the gentle tug almost a massage as he teased her hair out and snipped off the ends.

Max squeezed her eyes closed. Alec was close enough that she could smell the soap he'd used, his chest was right at eye level, his legs brushed hers on either side. His arms, his hands, his fingers... He was right _there_. She could reach out and touch him. She could wrap her arms around his waist and pull him closer still, bury her face in his chest and let his heartbeat drown out the news report that was still ringing in her ears. It had been so long since she'd been able to touch anyone and he was right there, helping her, not being an ass, taking care of her.

And she so did not deserve any of it.

Logan was gone. A city's worth of transgenics was dead. She'd asked them to stay and they were dead.

She didn't deserve even the comfort of Alec's meticulous attention, his steady soothing presence, the faint whisper of his breath against her cheek as he continued to work.

Logan hadn't been able to touch her, although he'd loved her. He'd spent his last year on earth virtually alone because she'd poisoned him, nearly killed him, then pushed him away and lied to him. His last act on the planet was to call her and ask her to come right away. She'd told him she was too busy to get there that quickly and, as a result, he'd died alone, dozens of transgenics following in his wake. Everything she'd worked toward for two years was just… gone.

Everything but Alec who she'd treated like crap since two seconds after they met. Everyone but Alec who was stuck to her like glue. She hadn't deserved Logan and she didn't deserve Alec either.

Max knew she was crying again, but she couldn't seem to stop. No matter how tightly she kept her eyes closed, the tears refused to be hidden.

Alec set his scissors aside, removed the towel around her shoulders and picked her up as silent tears continued to form tracks down her face. He carried her to the bed and set her down. Max immediately curled up on her uninjured side, facing away from him. She didn't think she could bear to see his face right now.

Alec didn't say anything. He turned out the light and quickly stretched out beside her. He drew the threadbare covers up over them both, then wrapped an arm around her. He pulled her to him, her back pressed to his chest.

"Sleep, Max," he said gently. "We'll figure this out."

"I can't fix this," she whispered.

"No," Alec said gruffly, pulling her closer still. "But we can make them pay."

* * *

_More soon…_


	7. Chapter 7

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

_Thank you for all the lovely reviews, especially to those I can't respond to. So here we go…_

Chapter Seven

* * *

Alec awoke to the sound of the shower running. He wasn't surprised that Max was already up. He knew she slept less than he did, but he also knew she would have been uncomfortable waking up with him still holding her. Alec wasn't going to apologize for it though. They'd both needed a bit of comforting, whether Max could admit it or not.

Alec rolled over and stared at the ceiling, running a hand over his face. He did an internal check, as natural as breathing, and found that he was still exhausted. It was an ache burrowing right down to his bones.

He'd come back from scrounging for first aid supplies to find Max half-dead. After he'd decided not to kill her for lying and saying it was only a graze, he settled in to work. The bullet wound was a through and through. Alec had been forced to do what he could, then sit back and wait to see if she would heal. He hadn't even had any way to give her a transfusion. He knew she'd lost too much blood, but there wasn't a clinic or hospital anywhere for him to raid. The few supplies he'd found had come out of a little grocery, barely more than a few bandages and some antiseptic.

Alec scrubbed at his sandpaper-like eyes. He'd spent two days watching Max and watching TV. If he'd thought he'd hated the silence before, two more days of it, punctuated by news reports, were making him crazy. He'd have given about anything for Max to open her eyes and keep him company when the news started coming in. Regardless, she was awake now. Hopefully, she would be willing to at least talk to him this morning. Alec quickly altered that to just hoping she didn't punch him again. It was best to keep goals reasonable.

Alec stretched, enjoying the feel of his muscles loosening as he worked out the kinks. The pleasant sensation lasted until he remembered why he always enjoyed his early morning stretch so much. Feline DNA. Cats loved to stretch after a nap.

He had feline DNA and a brand new virus to match, which meant he was on the run, and hiding out in this lousy, backwater motel. Alec had a new set of reasons to hate his life. As if he'd needed more.

Max might have spent years roughing it, but Alec hadn't. He'd lived in a nice, nearly medically-clean compound. Sure, they'd sent him out into the world every once in a while, but he'd always come back to a spotlessly clean bunk, a working toilet and shower, food prepared expressly for him and a fresh set of starched fatigues. He'd been forced to give all that up but he'd happily replaced those comforts with new ones – wine, women, and song… or scotch, women, and TV, more accurately. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, he'd swooped in and made his own little oasis of Brain's old apartment. Clean. Orderly.

Then Terminal City happened, the very definition of a cesspool, and now, he didn't even have that. He'd been working on it and he'd have eventually carved out a new clean little haven within the rat's nest that was TC, but this… a rented room that reeked of Max's blood and countless other stinking occupants who'd been doing who knew what and he _certainly_ didn't want to know what, this was almost as bad as Max's weekly trips to the sewers, except now he had nowhere to escape to, no home where he could clean up and get away from it.

Alec sighed. It would just have to do for now. Manticore had beaten flexibility into him and he could survive pretty much anywhere. He didn't have to like it, but he could do it. He still had Max and it was better than what had happened to the rest of the Xs in TC. One second they'd been fine, wondering what the helicopter was up to, and the next they'd been down.

Alec heard the shower stop. He stood and walked to a pile of plastic bags in the corner and carried them to the bathroom. "Max?" He knocked on the door.

"What do you want?" she called.

"You're gonna have to open the door if you want some fresh clothes," he answered.

The door opened a crack and Max peered out. "What?"

"Clothes." He held out the bags toward her and she looked at them as if afraid to touch them. "Your others were a mess. Of course you don't have to take 'em if you don't want to," he added. "I'm perfectly ok with it if you prance around naked for a while."

Max's fingers turned white where they were wrapped around the edge of the door and Alec knew she was dying to hit him. Luckily, there was no way she was coming out of the bathroom until she was dressed so she had to settle for a snide, "Don't be an ass, Alec."

Alec just shrugged then shook the bags slightly so that the plastic made a rustling sound. "You gonna take these or not?"

She just looked at him, staring, trying to decide what he was up to. "Thanks," she finally said. She snaked a hand outside the door, revealing a bit more skin than she'd intended, but for once Alec chose not to comment. He valued his ability to procreate at some point in the future.

Alec went back to the bed, and sat down with his back against the headboard. He picked up the remote, and after a few second's hesitation, turned on the TV. He sat for several minutes watching the same video over and over that he'd been seeing for the past couple of days. That crazy Gladys lady was on again, as well, demanding justice for her stupid cats. After a few more minutes he guessed there wasn't anything new to report and he was certain of it when the news channel moved on to a different story. When he'd first been watching it, it had been transgenic genocide 24/7.

Alec snapped the TV off and threw the remote aside. He tipped his head back against the headboard and closed his tired eyes. He was moving past exhausted to just _weary_.

"Alec, wake up."

Alec's eyes snapped open. Apparently he really wasn't at the top of his game this morning. He hadn't heard the bathroom door open, or Max come out. And now with his eyes open, he still wasn't so sure he was awake. It was Max… but…

"You wanna tell me what kind of stupid store you got these clothes from?" she demanded furiously.

Alec just cocked his head to one side, appraising her. "They don't fit?"

"They… no! I mean, yes… I mean…" She stammered through her rage and Alec guessed his smirk wasn't helping her temper. "Alec, have you ever seen me wear anything even close to this?"

"No," Alec smiled, "and that's kinda the point. On the run, remember?"

"But… _this_? I can barely move, let alone run!"

Max was in a woman's business suit, a beautiful dark charcoal-gray pinstripe. It had a knee-length straight skirt that hugged all her curves. Max wouldn't be able to fight in it without splitting the thing or hiking it up, but with the wine colored shirt and her blonde, pixyish hair, she looked like anyone but the Max the media had been showing.

"We're trying to hide and I had two choices," Alec said, his tone practical. "Hooker or upscale. Since you'd kill me if I'd brought you something slutty, I decided to go with the other. Is that a problem?"

"But…"

"I know. You wanna look like a warrior maiden with a penchant for leather, but guess what… Now's not the time." He frowned, looking her up and down. "Besides…"

Max matched his frown. "What?"

"You look… You look good."

"Good?" she asked skeptically, her brow deeply furrowed.

For once, Alec just looked at her, her new clothes and her hair forcing him to _really_ look at her. "You're beautiful," he said, as if the thought had just occurred to him, and maybe it had. He'd always known she was attractive, but he hadn't… This was _Max_, after all. He'd just never… This was _Max_.

"Thanks… I think."

The words drew his eyes to her lips, full and in a downturned mew of confusion at the moment.

"Your own mother wouldn't recognize you," he said. "Or surrogate... whatever… she wouldn't recognize you. Not that she ever really saw you."

Max just continued to stare at him as if he'd lost his mind, and maybe he had. His eyes scanned her from head to foot. It was as if he'd never seen her before. He was suddenly and viscerally reminded of holding all of those curves in his arms the night before. He'd wanted to console her, and when she'd turned and nestled comfortably into his embrace, wrapping one fist in his t-shirt to keep him close, he was the one who'd been consoled after two days of fearing he was going to be on his own again.

She was gorgeous. _Max_.

"Of course, we can change your hair, and change your clothes, but…" He dared to look at her face again. "Your face… your lips… they're very distinctive…" Alec clammed up as soon as he realized he was staring at her mouth.

Alec decided they were wrong. He wasn't a cat. He was a dog, a dog that deserved to be taken out and shot for what he was thinking. This was _Max_. He didn't get to think that way about Max.

"We'll just have to hope they don't look that closely," Max said slowly, her tone telling him just how idiotic he was sounding.

Alec cleared his throat uncomfortably. He quickly stood up and stepped around her. "I should get dressed."

* * *

Max stared after Alec as he disappeared into the bathroom. His expression was still nearly stunned and Max wondered if her face didn't reflect the sentiment. He hadn't called her hot, or sexy, or made some other lewd remark about her getting naked. He hadn't smirked. He'd just stopped and his face had changed somehow as he looked at her, then he'd called her _beautiful_.

Which was just wrong. Alec didn't look at her like that. He never had.

Logan. _He_ was allowed to really notice her. _He_ was the one who could call her beautiful and mean it. Logan was the only one who looked at her like that.

Logan who was dead, dead because of her.

Max had drifted awake that morning to find Alec's body still closely wrapped around hers as if protecting her even in sleep. For a few moments, she'd allowed herself to simply lie there and enjoy the sensations of a man's warm skin against her own. She'd felt the play of muscles in his arms and chest as he breathed in and out, and as he moved slightly in his sleep.

She'd opened her eyes to find herself nearly nose to nose with Alec. She may have started the night refusing to face him, but she'd ended it clinging to him. She'd cautiously pried away her hand that was fisted in his shirt, glancing up to make sure she hadn't awakened him. His long eyelashes had fluttered briefly, then settled against his pale, freckled cheeks. Max spent so much time with Alec that sometimes, despite how many girls she'd seen him with, she forgot that he was a man, a very, very handsome man.

Guilt washed over her as she remembered thinking how well they fit together. Logan had always been just a bit too tall, or too short, or something. She never said anything, but she'd never quite found a natural fit in his arms. She'd put it down to the awkwardness of learning someone else's body that all couples went through, and she and Logan had just never had the chance to become really comfortable with each other what with the virus and all.

With Alec wrapped around her, however, the difference had been easily recognizable. She and Alec had literally been made for each other. Alec even smelled right. Logan had smelled of Seattle, and wine and expensive cologne, metal and oil from his exoskeleton, and his other electronics. Alec smelled like human and cat all mixed together, and beneath that a hint of gunpowder, smells that immediately brought back memories of her childhood with the others. With Alec beside her she realized he smelled like _home_.

Max sank down onto the bed and put her head in her hands. She tried to remember a time when life was less confusing, but to be honest, her life was one disaster after another. There had been times that were quieter than others, but that had always been the calm before the storm and right now Max was feeling windblown.

She was also feeling light-headed, _very_ light-headed.

"Max?"

She blinked her eyes open to find Alec once again kneeling in front of her. "How much blood did I lose?" she asked, feeling as if her own voice was coming from a long way away.

"Does the term _buckets_ mean anything to you?"

"That bad, huh?"

"How's your side?" he asked, rather than answer.

"Sore. Itches."

"You want me to take a look?"

"No," she said too forcefully, and Alec's face fell. "I mean... I already bandaged it myself. It's fine."

Alec just nodded. He stood and backed away from her, crossing his arms. It drew her attention to what he was wearing. Alec was in dress clothes, not unlike hers. The suit was a dark blue, almost black. He'd tossed his suit coat down on the bed beside her when he knelt and was only wearing his slacks and light blue dress shirt.

He stood for a moment trying to gauge her mood, but when she didn't say anything else, he sighed, then shrugged and walked toward another plastic bag that was sitting in the corner. He pulled out a tie, mostly yellow with blue touches. Alec turned his collar up, slung the tie over his head, then began sliding it side to side around his neck until he seemed satisfied with the length of both ends in relation to the other.

Max watched as he expertly went about tying the tie, as if he'd been doing it every day of his life, despite the fact that she'd never seen him wear anything other than casual clothing.

Alec cleared his throat and glanced at her. She saw a flicker of something in his eyes when he realized she was watching him.

"This is a double Windsor knot," Alec explained suddenly, and Max guessed he was uncomfortable with the silence, or with her close scrutiny as he went through the practiced motions. "A single Windsor is all right, but I've always thought it makes a tie look a little lopsided. A double Windsor, though... That's a knot you can count on, nice and even, solid."

"And you know this how?" Max asked, for lack of anything better to say.

"A job. The jerk at Manticore taught me the single, but out in the field, there was this businessman I was working with." Alec shrugged again. "I liked the way his looked."

Alec, she thought, always watching, learning, making adjustments to fit in and to make his own life run a little smoother. Max wanted to ask if Alec had been forced to kill the businessman who'd taught him about ties. That, however, was a conversation stopper if ever she heard one.

Finally, Alec finished. He adjusted the tie one last time at his throat, turned his collar back down and then smoothed his hand over the tie from neck to waist. "How do I look?"

Oddly, the first word that came to Max's mind was _beautiful_. "Great," she said instead and made sure she put the requisite impatience into her tone. "So we're supposed to be a couple of stiffs on a business trip or something?"

Alec raised an eyebrow. "I don't care what we're supposed to be as long as we look like a couple of yuppies on the lam instead of two mutants on the lam." He pointed toward her injured side. "We can't afford to be recognized again."

Max reached up to touch her freshly shorn _blonde_ hair. "Don't think that's gonna be a problem." With the pixie cut Alec had given her, she knew she didn't feel like herself, let alone look like herself. At least Alec had done a decent job on her hair, which was a freaky thing to think about, but she had to admit he'd chosen a style that made her look good, although totally different.

They both jumped when Alec's cell phone rang. He strode across the room and snatched it up. "Hello?"

"_Well, I guess that answers the question of whether or not you're alive_."

Alec looked up at her and mouthed _Mole_ even though Max could hear both sides of the conversation. "Had a couple of close calls, but we're good." He cleared his throat. "We've been trying to get in touch, but-"

"_Yeah, somebody's been jamming our signal. We just now got it figured out_," Mole answered. "_Most of the tech types are either dead or moved out. They didn't give us real freaks a lot of computer training. Dix has been havin' to take care of most of it on his own_."

Alec nodded although Mole couldn't see him and began pacing across the floor, running his hand through his hair in his typical nervous gesture. "What's the damage?" he asked.

"_It looks like about half of everybody who was in TC_," Mole said solemnly.

"Is…" Alec cleared his throat. "Did Josh make it? I haven't seen him in any of the news footage."

"_Dog boy's fine, but that's not why I called_." Alec was visibly relieved and he gave her a chagrinned grimace when he caught her watching him. She'd been thinking about Logan so much she was ashamed to say that Joshua had fled her mind. She should have known Alec would be worrying about him. He and Josh had a weird sort of bond. They'd been like two kids in the candy store when they were let out of Manticore. Josh was the innocent little brother and Alec was the wily older sibling who looked out for him, but still got him into trouble when that was more fun. She tried not to be jealous at how well the two seemed to get along sometimes.

"What's up?" Alec asked.

"_Dix has been going over all of the files Logan sent. We think the doctor who developed the virus is in San Francisco. His name's Morton. He's working in a lab called_ _New Life Genetics_."

"He was Manticore?" Alec asked.

"_Not as far as we can tell. He's worked there for a long time_," Mole answered. "_Granted, not all the sons of bitches worked on site_."

"Might be one of the cult's people," Max observed.

"We'll find him," Alec said, sudden determination in his voice.

"_And then_?"

"Either he helps us, or I kill him."

* * *

_More soon…_


	8. Chapter 8

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

_We're off to visit our friendly neighborhood geneticist today..._

Chapter Eight

* * *

"_A better future through genetics,_" Max read aloud. She sniffed in disdain, but continued leafing through the pamphlet as she and Alec sat in the main waiting room of New Life Genetics.

"Sounds like someone we know already, huh?" Alec's eyes continued to scan the seemingly innocuous area and its other occupants. He looked completely at ease, but Max knew he was on full alert, the same as she was.

"Listen to this. _The next generation of children can be infinitely improved by careful, minor genetic manipulation. Using a mother and father's own genetic contributions_… blah, blah, blah. Basically, they're making better babies for these couples by screwing with their DNA." Max looked around at the waiting room that looked like any waiting room in a doctor's office, albeit a bit more high-class than many. It was a nice neutral beige with lots of plants and several standard meaningless mass-produced paintings. "But this guy is screwing around with viruses, too. If he worked for M-," she eyed the woman behind the check-in desk, "for _them_ as a geneticist, then what's he doing making killer viruses?"

"Developing a bug that could derail us might be right up his alley," Alec replied, his voice a bare whisper. "Viruses can alter DNA and force a person's own cells to make more of the virus that will in turn alter more cells. Sometimes, the doctors are using them to introduce elements into a DNA strand that they want propagated."

Max just stared at him for a second. Every so often, she forgot he really wasn't the total idiot she liked to say he was.

Alec nodded his head toward a couple sitting on the opposite side of the waiting room with a toddler running around in front of them holding some sort of toy car. "My guess is they're here to have their kid's DNA tweaked. A little taller, a little faster, something… I seriously doubt it's only to correct diseases with a genetic component."

Max snorted derisively. "Trying to cure diseases isn't enough. They just can't resist toying with Mother Nature."

Alec shrugged. "All I know is this guy has some explaining to do. If we don't like his answers, then he's still going to have some explaining to do. He's just not going to like the circumstances nearly as much."

Max nodded. There didn't appear to be any security to speak of at the facility. They'd already cased the place and there was no sign of White or any of his people. They'd called ahead and the easiest way to meet the good doctor was to make an appointment as a couple in need of a little genetic goosing for their future offspring.

A woman in standard medical type scrubs appeared through a door near the reception desk. "Mr. and Mrs. Temple?"

Alec stood and offered his hand to Max. She pursed her lips, but took the offered hand nonetheless. Despite the awkwardness she was feeling at being so close to him, until they knew what was up, they were supposed to be any other loving couple who'd come to the doctor for assistance. She knew that they at least looked the part of an affluent couple. Alec was in his suit and Max was in her own business attire.

The nurse led them into a small office with two plush chairs facing an expensive desk that was so big Max wondered how they'd managed to get it through the door, even in pieces.

"Dr. Morton will be with you in just a moment," the nurse said before leaving and closing the door behind her.

Max released Alec's hand and hurriedly sat down, ignoring how disturbingly natural the sensation of Alec's fingers entwined with hers had been. She wanted to ignore this. Whatever this was. She needed to ignore it right now. Being constantly alone with Alec, however, was making that difficult.

Max glanced over at him where he was lounging in his chair, seemingly at ease, but there was something a little off in his bearing. "You ok?" she asked.

He turned toward her and his mouth quirked up on one side. "We're sitting in a fertility clinic that also happens to be a working death lab. What's not to like?"

"Do you have to be a smart-aleck _all_ the time?"

"Your fault." He huffed out a tense laugh. "Just trying to live up to the name you gave me."

"I named you _after_ I knew what you were."

Alec shrugged. "Chicken and egg. Although I'm not sure I can be the chicken if I'm a cat. Just wrong."

"Don't talk about chicken… or eggs for that matter. I'm hungry," Max said. She ran her hand through her hair and was once again surprised to find it so short. In frustration, she let her hand fall to her lap, then sucked in a deep breath, allowing her chest to expand to its full capacity. She held it for a second, before letting the air out slowly in an attempt to ease some of the tension she was feeling.

Alec made a tiny sound and she looked over to see he was sitting perfectly still, his eyes glued to her, looking at her as if she were edible. Ever since the motel, she kept catching Alec glancing at her, an expression on his face like he'd never really noticed her before. He wasn't looking at her now like his co-conspirator, or his backup, even his fellow transgenic. He was looking at her like a man looks at a woman. He looked… _interested_.

"Maybe you're not the only one who's been going without," Alec said, his voice a low rumble. His eyes widened when he realized he'd said it out loud. He cleared his throat and quickly looked away. "Ignore that. I mentally kicked myself for it already."

Max just blinked, not sure how to react. "Good," she finally managed, her voice a little too high.

Despite his words, she'd seen the hungry look in his eyes. After Max renounced him as a fake boyfriend, Alec hadn't gone back to dating anymore than Max had gone back to actually seeing Logan. They'd both been too busy.

But now it was just them, alone. Max felt a tingle run down her spine at the thought, and silently berated herself for it. Logan hadn't been dead even a week. Sure, she hadn't been near a man in so long she'd quit counting, and sure she and Logan had been on the outs for large portions of their entire acquaintance, but… Max wanted to cry at how disloyal she felt for even allowing a thought like that, about _Alec_ of all people, to enter her head.

"Max?" Alec asked carefully. She just shook her head, refusing to even look at him. "Max, I'm sorry. You know me. I'm incapable of keeping my mouth shut."

Except he was. He'd never made a serious play for her, and she certainly knew he wasn't shy about going after what he wanted. He'd made a few comments, but this… this was different and they both knew it.

Of all the times for her to suddenly become aware that Alec was _male_.

There was something wrong with her. There had to be. She was too screwed up to be allowed to live. It was a wonder Manticore hadn't put her down even before she escaped.

The door suddenly opened and Max jumped, but quickly settled back into the seat.

"Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Morton." He was wearing a lab coat over a shirt and tie, and appeared to be in his 50s with a full head of salt and pepper hair, medium height and build, though a little less nerdy in appearance than Max would have expected of a geneticist. The man held his hand out and Alec quickly stood and shook it.

"Pleased to meet you," he answered and Max was certain she heard the dangerous lilt in his voice, although the other man didn't seem to have noticed.

The doctor moved as if he would offer his hand to her, but without seeming to do so, Alec blocked the man from going near her using slightly exaggerated motions to take his seat. Rather than try again, the doctor shared a nod with her, then walked behind the desk and sat down. He crossed his hands in front of him on top of the desk and looked from one of them to the other. "This is simply an introductory meeting to see whether we here at New Life Genetics can be of assistance to you, so... why don't you tell me why you're here?"

Max was momentarily stymied and could have kicked herself for being so off her game. She hadn't come up with a decent cover story, nor had Alec brought it up during their hours in the car.

Alec coughed politely to draw the doctor's attention to him. "My wife and I have no children, but we would like to start a family." The doctor nodded for him to continue. Alec grinned and Max cringed, afraid of what would come out of his mouth next. "Don't get me wrong, we've got the mechanics down pat, but so far we've been careful to make sure we're just in practice rounds."

"Alec," Max growled and added a glare for good measure, despite a zing of awareness that shot up her spine. Her mind might be a mass of guilt and uncertainty, but her body wasn't having any problems processing.

Alec smirked, but he turned back to the doctor and the amusement fell away as if it had never been there. "We're both epileptic."

"Ah," the doctor said and picked up a pen to start taking notes.

"We grew up with the condition and know how problematic it was. My wife and I are concerned that our child will have no chance with it coming from both parents. Is that something you might be able to help us with?"

Max managed to keep her mouth from dropping open, but it was close. Alec sounded completely sincere, as if he truly had worried about such a thing. She hadn't known he was prone to the shakes in the first place, let alone that he worried about what would happen to the next generation.

"Well," Dr. Morton said, drawing the word out, "that depends. Seizures are caused by any number of circumstances. I would have to have more detailed records of each of your medical histories to come to some sort of conclusion. My nurse informed me that you did not supply us with any records as of yet."

"No, we wanted to meet you first and get some idea what you were capable of," Alec said straight-faced.

"Can you at least tell me about what sort of seizure disorders we're talking about here?" the doctor asked curiously.

Alec glanced at Max and in that moment they came to some sort of decision. The guy appeared to be a perfectly normal, straightforward doctor. He didn't have "Genocidal Maniac" tattooed on his forehead and Max doubted they were going to get anything out of him until they laid their cards on the table. Terminal City was in chaos thanks to him and they didn't have time to be screwing around. Max nodded her assent, almost imperceptibly and Alec mirrored it. He squared his shoulders and turned back toward the doctor.

"We have a genetic condition that causes a serotonin deficiency in our brains," Alec replied calmly, as if it were the most normal thing on the planet.

"A serotonin defi…" The doctor's hawk-like eyes focused suddenly on Max. "My, my… I'd never have recognized you." He began to sit back in his chair, his hands sliding off the desk.

"Keep your hands where I can see them," Alec ordered. He'd pulled his gun from the small of his back and rested it on his leg very casually, although they all knew how quickly he could bring it to bear.

"Why are you here?" the doctor asked.

Alec huffed out a derisive laugh. "Don't play dumb. It's insulting."

The doctor didn't respond, his too-intelligent eyes snapping back and forth between them.

"You designed the virus that killed half of the transgenics in Terminal City." Max let the statement drop into the sudden silence.

Morton was quiet for several more seconds and then his eyes narrowed. "Interesting. I was anticipating a higher result than that."

"Max, say the word and I'll shoot him."

She had to admit she enjoyed the flicker of fear in the man's eyes. "Not yet," she replied. "We need to know if there's a cure."

The doctor pursed his lips. "Or what?"

"Or I'll make sure this place needs a new chief geneticist," Alec warned.

"Do you work for the cult?" Max demanded. "You're one of White's people?"

The man frowned in confusion and Max could see he had no clue what she was talking about. "I know White, but… what cult?"

"He came to you? Asked you to design the virus?"

"Of course. I never worked for Manticore on site. They had their own people, but I was their virus specialist for years. They came to me when they had a particularly difficult problem that needed solving."

Max felt the words like a sucker-punch. "That so?"

Morton raised an eyebrow, his earlier fear seemingly gone. He simply looked interested as if he were trying to solve some new intricate problem. "As a matter of fact, I designed your virus, 452. How is your journalist boyfriend these days?"

"He's dead," Max snapped.

"Too bad."

"Now can I shoot him?" Alec cut in.

"I'm thinking," she answered. And she was, but not about shooting the doctor. Logan had been looking for the man who designed her virus. That was how he'd stumbled on the new one. He'd been trying to cure her, but instead he'd saved her. She wanted to weep all over again at the injustice of it all.

"Max?"

She shook her head, unable to make her voice work. This man had kept her apart from Logan for a year and all he had to say was _too bad_. Logan was dead because he'd stumbled onto White's plan for _another_ deadly virus this man designed.

Alec stood and pointed the gun at the doctor. "The cure?"

Morton shrugged as if it didn't matter one way or the other. "No need. The virus requires direct contact and it is incapable of surviving outside of a host for more than 24 hours. Anyone who was going to die is already dead. I designed it that way for safety reasons since it was going to be released into the general population."

"Why?" Max asked. This man didn't seem to be a dedicated murderer like the cult people, yet he'd helped White kill them. If Logan hadn't given them a heads up, they'd have all stood there like idiots while they dropped like flies. Morton looked to have a sweet setup here. She couldn't imagine he had any lingering loyalty to Manticore. It didn't appear that he'd ever worked for them directly. He'd been their outsourced virologist. Nor did it appear he was actually connected to White and the breeding cult.

"Money is always nice," the man said offhandedly. "A few jobs for Manticore and I had enough to start this lab. With what I earned for your virus?" He nodded toward Max. "I built a new wing. I haven't decided what to do with my newest windfall."

"But this place... You're supposed to be helping people with genetic abnormalities."

The man raised an eyebrow. "Very true, and an intriguing area of research. It's probably the other reason I worked for Manticore. The genetics involved are fascinating. To say they are complicated doesn't even begin to cover it. You are magnificently structured creatures."

"Yet you seemed to have no problem decimating the population," Alec snarled.

"The mechanism to do so was equally fascinating." Morton's eyes gleamed with intelligence and a fervent dedication to his work. There was no sign, not even the tiniest, of any remorse for the deaths he'd brought about. "Your immune systems are beyond extraordinary and a virus that could infiltrate as this one did required very careful manipulation."

"The bastard did it just to see if he could," Max said, appalled.

"I _am_ a scientist first," the man said by way of explanation, like that explained anything.

"You enjoy the challenge, huh?" Alec gave a harsh bark of laughter.

"I do." Morton nodded.

Alec tightened his grip on the gun he was still pointing at the doctor. "And if White came to you again with some new puzzle, you'd jump at the chance, wouldn't you?"

Morton just looked at him, finally making the wiser choice to keep his trap shut. The answer, however, was written on his face.

The silence became thick to the point that Max could almost feel it. Alec kept his gun aimed at the doctor, never moving so much as a muscle, not even blinking. The doctor was watching him, as if looking at a particularly interesting bug under a microscope.

"Max, would you mind waiting for me outside?" Alec asked lowly.

Max looked at him and was alarmed by the cold, detached look on his face. "Alec, I don't think-"

"Wait outside, Max," he said, no longer a request.

Max frowned, not sure if she could do what he was asking, if she could even _allow_ what he was asking.

Alec backed up without looking and opened the door for her. "Now, Max."

His face was completely blank, a mask made by Manticore if ever she'd seen one. Finally, Max stood, walked outside and heard the door click closed behind her. She listened, dread filling her, but she couldn't make out what was going on inside the office. She heard a few more muffled words, and then nothing else.

Suddenly, the door opened and Alec appeared, his face still painfully empty of any real feeling or expression.

"Let's go," he said, already heading down the hallway.

It was only as he walked past her, that she saw the few drops of blood spattered on the cuff of his dress shirt.

* * *

_More soon...._


	9. Chapter 9

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

_Allrighty... Let's see how our heroes are dealing with the good doctor's demise..._

Chapter Nine

* * *

Max glanced over at Alec who was sitting behind the wheel. He'd left her very briefly to ensure that any video surveillance was destroyed, then ushered her out to the car. After that, he'd driven, although Max didn't know where they were headed, she assumed back to Seattle. She wasn't sure she wanted to ask either, or if she really wanted to talk to Alec at all knowing what had just happened.

Max knew, intellectually, that it had been necessary, that the doctor was a murderer and would gladly do it again, just out of academic interest or for the sake of "science." There had been no way to bring the man to justice with the way the government was treating them. Half the country probably thought he'd done a public service. Yet while she understood all of that, it didn't stop her from feeling dirty.

Alec… she wasn't sure what Alec was feeling.

It had taken about five minutes of driving for Alec to begin to unwind. He'd schooled his expression first, actually glancing in the mirror once to be sure his usual pleasant, unconcerned mask was in place. After that, she'd watched as he worked his way through his muscle groups, systematically relaxing them one by one, until he was once again the picture of a disinterested bystander to life.

"You want some food?" Alec asked. "There's a sign for a restaurant not too far up the road."

Max studied him, amazed at the seeming nonchalance. She wondered that she had ever thought he was actually as shallow as he appeared. Maybe it was that he wished he really was that shallow. At the moment, however, Max knew there was so much more going on beneath the surface than she could guess. Alec wasn't just distant and hiding from the world or her, he was completely locked down. He was hiding from _him_.

That wasn't to say he was quiet.

"I think I need something to eat. Maybe they'll have a decent burger. That place, the one where you got shot, that was the lousiest burger. I've had better meals at Joshua's and he doesn't know how to make anything besides macaroni. Poor guy makes so much I'd think he's been taking pasta lessons from Lo-"

Max made an involuntary noise, a sharp intake of breath. Just Logan's name, sounding out like a bullhorn, was almost enough to deafen in the closed car.

It reminded her that Logan was gone, that it was her doing, but it also reminded her that she'd managed to go without thinking about him since leaving the lab well over an hour ago. She'd been concentrating on Alec, then she'd starting wondering if she should let the others know it was safe to come back to TC or whether it would be safer to just let them stay in hiding wherever they were now. Once again she'd let her current worries draw her mind away from Logan.

Alec bowed his head, embarrassment and shame on his face. "Sorry, Max. I didn't-"

"Just shut it, Alec," she said harshly. "Just... just stop talking, ok?"

"Yeah. Fine." Alec's hands tightened on the wheel momentarily before he once again forced himself to relax. "Shutting up."

The car fell silent, and almost immediately, Max wished she hadn't asked him to stop. She could see a muscle ticking in his jaw, saw his shoulders begin to draw up with tension until he realized what he was doing and shrugged them loose again.

Alec had done the dirty work. He hadn't pawned it off on her or anyone else, or weaseled out of it somehow. He'd gone a step farther and protected her from even having to _watch_ him kill a man in cold blood. Alec hadn't been forced to do anything like that since leaving Manticore. He'd nearly died just to keep from killing her and Josh when White had stuck the bomb in his head. Now she could almost see him remembering his old job and the people he'd been asked to kill, justified or not.

"_You mean assassinations."_

"_That is my job. You wanna bust my chops about it, go ahead."_

She'd thought he was a cold-hearted killer. He'd said it was just his job, that it didn't bother him, and Max, like an idiot, had believed him. This new burden, though, she could see what it was doing to him, how hard he was working to keep the strain from showing. With the doctor, Alec had borne the ugly reality of taking a life face to face and she'd let him. Worse, he'd _asked_ her to let him.

"You ok?" Max asked into the heavy silence.

"Sure." His eyes darted toward her then back to the road. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I... You..."

"Yes?" He raised an eyebrow. "Me, you. In the car. Driving. Where are you goin' with this, Max?"

Max pursed her lips, unsure of how to say what she needed to. "What you did-"

"I don't want to talk about it," Alec cut her off.

"Alec-"

"Look, I'm not the good guy in the story, Max. I know that, ok." He swallowed audibly, his jaw clenched. "That's why I asked you to leave. You're the white knight that comes in to save the day. That's not my job and it never has been. I know what I did, and I'd do it again if I had to. That doesn't mean I want to talk about it or hear you lecture me about what I've known for years."

He kept his eyes glued to the landscape, although there was nothing to see. They were passing through a small town, crappy and dilapidated like everything was these days. Closed businesses lined the street, but still Alec studied them like they were fascinating viewing.

Alec was expecting her to come down on him for what'd he done, but Max knew the difference even if Alec didn't expect her to. This wasn't a Manticore sanctioned assassination. This was the execution of a murderer who would kill the rest of them given the opportunity. That didn't change the fact that Alec was feeling like he'd fallen back on his training, that he was what he'd always been, a killer.

Max had the feeling that if she didn't say something now, the moment would pass and she'd never get it back. She stretched out her hand and set it on his arm. "You're not the bad guy, Alec. Not even close."

The plastic of the steering wheel creaked beneath Alec's grip. He'd taken his coat off and thrown it in the back seat, leaving his blood-stained shirt cuff plainly visible right in front of him. He turned his head away from her so she couldn't see his expression, but she could still see the tick of muscles in his jaw as he fought for control. Max just waited.

Finally, he cleared his throat and turned back to watch the road. "Whatever. We have bigger problems to worry about." He shifted his hold on the wheel so that her hand fell away from his arm.

Max sighed, willing to let it go for now. "Fine. We should call Mole, tell him we're headed back to Seattle."

"Sure," he said, fumbling in his pocket for his cell phone.

A large box truck pulled out right in front of them forcing Alec to brake hard. As it was, only his cat-like reflexes kept them from slamming into the other vehicle.

"What does this moron think he's doing?" Alec bit out. "He think it's easy to find a decent car to steal? Took me half an hour to find this one and he's gonna wreck it!"

As the box truck began to accelerate, Alec nosed the car out to check for oncoming vehicles and then hurried around the truck. Just as he pulled into the oncoming lane, another car roared up behind them, following them almost bumper to bumper. Alec floored it to get around the truck and back into their lane.

"Did they let everybody in this town out of the nuthouse for the day?" Max snapped.

Just as they pulled back in front of the truck, the car behind them accelerated again and Max assumed they were going to come around. Instead the car very purposely veered toward them. The driver rammed his car into the rear quarter panel of theirs, immediately pushing it sideways. As soon as the car started to slide, the other driver accelerated again, ramming them broadside on the driver's side doors.

The car lurched, shuddering under the impact, and then the next second… they were flying.

Manticore had made its children to do many things. Flying wasn't one of them.

The car rolled then crashed back to the ground, and Max lost track after that, disoriented by the twisting, turning, bone-crunching spin, and the screech of steel as the car seemed to cartwheel off the road.

The world fell silent as the car finally came to a halt, resting on its top. Max groaned, wondering if her shoulder was still attached it hurt so badly where she'd slammed into the seatbelt and door over and over. The piece of crap car didn't have any airbags and Max could feel the quickly growing ache across her chest to match the pain in her shoulder.

Sound began to filter back in and she could hear glass falling, followed by an ugly wheezing noise from the seat next to her. She tried to turn her head, and had to ignore the pain in her neck.

Alec was upside down as well, hanging in the seatbelt, his face streaked with blood. He had one hand wrapped around his chest, the other was pressed to the roof of the car trying to hold himself up.

"Max? You…" He sucked in a ragged breath. "You ok?"

"I don't know," she answered honestly. In addition to her entire body feeling like a giant bruise, and a probable concussion, her bullet wound was definitely making itself known again.

Feet appeared on the driver's side and abruptly a hand reached in holding a knife. The hand slipped beneath Alec's seat belt and slit it like it was cutting through butter. With a grunt Alec fell to the roof of the car in a jumble of limbs, his head taking the brunt of the fall. Almost as soon as he fell, the hand reached in again and jerked him out through the shattered window. She saw Alec finally realize what was going on and begin to struggle against whoever was dragging him away.

That sight, Alec thrashing to free himself from his attacker, finally spurred her into movement. She fumbled blindly for the clasp to her seatbelt and cursed as she spent precious seconds trying to unlatch it. At last, the strap came loose and she fell to the roof, half-braced for the impact. Her vision swam and it was only the sight of another set of feet approaching her door that brought the world back into focus.

Max reached out and ruthlessly jerked the legs out from under the man. By the time he landed, she was already scrambling her way through the shattered window, cursing her tight skirt that was not made for doing anything but sitting. She paused to land a solid punch to the man's nose to ensure he would stay down long enough for her to get past him.

Max stood and had to steady herself with a hand against the overturned car. She looked beyond it and saw that both the box truck and the car were stopped, completely blocking the small road through whatever hick town this was. Several more men were headed her way, and if they weren't cult members, she'd eat her hat.

She saw Alec was standing on his own although he was clearly unsteady on his feet, blood still running down his face from some wound hidden in his hair. He was surrounded by three more cult members, but it was the man in front of him that was holding all of his attention.

White.

The men coming for Max rounded the end of the car and Max decided a quick exit was in order. She vaulted over the car, landing on the opposite side, immediately heading for Alec and White, ignoring the spots that appeared in her vision as she jarred her already abused body.

Just as she reached them, White managed to land a solid blow to Alec's jaw. She saw his knees start to buckle, but White quickly grabbed Alec by his shirt. He swung him across the sidewalk toward a large plate glass storefront. With an added shove, Alec crashed into the window and it shattered around him. Alec tumbled through it, his legs catching on the low supporting wall, further damaging any chance he had of righting himself.

White launched himself through the broken window and stood over Alec. The bastard looked up to see Max approaching him at a run and he smiled. He _smiled_.

White waited until she was almost on him, even barking an order for the others to stand down. Max stepped over the low wall and Alec came into view, lying on his back amidst a sea of broken glass.

"Stop right there, 452."

White set his foot on Alec's chest and Max came to a screeching halt. "What do you want, Ames? Not enough that you killed half of Terminal City?" She could hear the others ranging themselves in a semi-circle behind her and took another step forward. "You gotta pick the last of us off the hard way?"

"I think I warned you not to move." White pressed down, grinding Alec into the shards of glass. Alec's face twisted in agony and he tried to move away, but it only made it worse and he stopped.

"All right!" Max snapped, holding her hands out in front of her. "Not moving. What do you want?"

"I need your assistance with a little project, 452."

"I saw your last little project. You think I'm gonna help you with _anything_?"

White took his foot off Alec, who immediately rolled onto his side. White used it against him and pushed him back through the glass to make a small mound of the shards behind him. White then kicked him in the ribs and Alec fell onto his back, arching as the glass cut into him, but once again White set his foot on Alec's chest and pushed down, grinding him into the hundreds of daggers on the floor. He made certain to shift him enough that the glass could dig in properly. Max saw blood beginning to appear around Alec on the floor, and her vision nearly swam at a sudden flashback to Logan lying in a pool of his own blood.

"Stop!" Max cried. "Stop, all right? Just tell me what you want!"

White gave Alec a last shove. He let out a quickly stifled cry, then when White removed his foot, Alec rolled onto his side away from Max. She had to force herself to look away so that she could focus on White who was walking toward her.

"I'll be happy to tell you," White said snidely. "But not just yet. All in good time, 452. All in good time."

White's hand shot out and he punched her, putting all of his weight behind it. The blow landed right over the bullet wound and Max felt something inside of her break.

The black spots were back in her vision, and abruptly the floor came up to meet her knees. She threw out a hand to stop her further descent, but it was useless. A shard of glass cut into her palm and she looked up to see Alec's shredded, bleeding back only a few feet away. He wasn't moving. He couldn't help her any more than she could help him.

White kicked her hand out from under her and Max fell to the floor. She landed on her face and felt fresh blood against her cheek. She heard the crunch of glass beneath his feet as White began to walk away.

"Load them in the truck."

* * *

_That seems like an excellent place to leave it for today, don't you think?_ _More soon..._


	10. Chapter 10

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

_Pardon the delay. Life does tend to sneak up and bite us in the butt sometimes, doesn't it? So, on we go. As I recall, Max and Alec weren't having a great day either…_

Chapter Ten

* * *

Max fought her way free of the haze surrounding her only to find that, either she was blind, or she was still in the dark. She heard the rumble of a heavy truck and it took her foggy mind a few extra seconds and a jolt from the ground beneath her to realize it was because she was inside one. If she had to guess, she'd say she was in the back of the box truck that had helped run them off the road.

Once she figured out where she was, Max paused to take stock of her own body. To say she was in pain would be an understatement. White had damaged something when he'd punched her. Whatever had been healing was now reinjured, and very likely made worse. She placed her hand over the wound and wasn't relieved at the lack of blood. It just meant the damage was internal and she was in a boatload of trouble, or a truckload as the case may be.

The truck smelled like old fruit and Max guessed it normally carried produce. Beyond that, however, was the smell of blood. Too much blood.

"Alec?" There was no response. "Alec," she tried again, louder. Still nothing.

Max rolled onto her side and was unable to stifle a groan. She heard the faint tinkle of glass as it fell from her hair and clothes, tiny pinpricks of pain flaming to life where it had cut her. She could feel a patch of blood on her cheek, dried in a sticky line back to her ear and into her hair.

Max struggled to her knees, biting her lip to keep from crying out. She didn't know how much of it was damage from the car accident and how much from White's well placed blow to her side, but, more importantly, Max wasn't sure how long she was going to make it without some real medical help.

Max braced herself against the truck's movement as best she could and reached out around her in the darkness. When she didn't encounter anything, she moved forward, still reaching out, and repeated the process until finally, she bumped into something.

Max moved closer and used her hands to tell her what her eyes couldn't. She'd found an arm. She quickly set a hand on the body and realized it was Alec, lying on his stomach. She knew it wasn't his chest because she could feel the jagged shards of glass stabbing into his skin. She moved upward and held her hand close to his face. She nearly wept in relief when she felt the warm tickle of Alec's breath cross her palm. Not another body. She didn't know if her sanity could handle another body, not of someone she cared about.

Max set her hand on his cheek and patted it. "Alec?" When there was no response, she slid her fingers into his hair searching for injuries. Almost immediately, she felt the knot, blood still oozing from it and she remembered seeing the blood on his face as he remained suspended in his seatbelt.

"You picked a great time to check out, you jerk. I could really use some help right now."

"Sry," Alec slurred, and Max jumped. "Tryin'."

"Alec?"

Alec sucked in a wheezing, shuddering breath. Max couldn't see it, but she felt the pain of his effort to breathe ripple through his body.

"Can you... not... poke... head?" Alec asked.

She immediately withdrew her hand from his hair.

"M'I blind?" he asked.

"We're locked in the back of the truck." The effort of remaining on her knees was becoming too much and Max eased onto her side, hissing at the contact with the jittering truck. The position put too much pressure on her wound and she rolled to her back.

The sound of Max's distress apparently did more to rouse him than poking at his injuries. "Y'ok?" he asked, sounding far more awake.

"Probably not," she said through gritted teeth.

She felt Alec move closer to her, grunting through his own efforts. "S'wrong?"

"White. Sucker punched me."

Max's heart skipped a beat when she felt Alec's hand slide across her torso to settle very close to where the bullet had entered. His trembling fingers searched just as hers had for blood. She knew the exact moment when it dawned on him that there was none and what that meant. His hand stilled and then flattened against her side, defeated. "Can't catch a break, can we?"

"Looks like you might have to be the white knight in the story after all," she said tightly, a sharp pain making her let out a sound that she was embarrassed to admit was close to a sob.

"Easy," he murmured. "Easy." Alec settled close to her side, a soothing warmth beside her from head to foot. His hand left her wound and traveled upward, gliding over her chest until it came to rest at her throat. He wrapped his warm fingers around her neck, his thumb brushing across her cheek. He rested his forehead against her temple, his nose just skimming over her skin. "It's ok, Maxie. Just hold on, ok?"

All she could do was nod. She honestly didn't know whether she wanted to scream or cry. She was hurting so badly and, once again, the man she'd hoped to be part of her future wasn't there. It was as if the universe was determined to beat her over the head with it until she finally got a clue. Like it always seemed to be, it wasn't Logan, but Alec at her side. Always touching her, always comforting her, helping her. Always _there_.

The two men were as different as cats and dogs, literally. Logan was loyal, steadfast, always eager to see her even when she'd been rude to him. He followed trails and helped when he could, was proud when he was able to do some good.

Alec was all feline DNA. Like any cat, he was both standoffish and demanding of attention, pushing himself right in her face to get her to notice him, touch him, albeit without her ever really getting to know the real him. When she refused to play along, it was Alec who elbowed her, patted her on the back, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Max couldn't really be sure, but he seemed to despise the world at large, yet he seemed attached to a certain few, and was fond of the comforts the world could afford him.

Logan had accepted her limits. He'd acknowledged and worked with her barriers. Either Alec didn't accept them, didn't care, or simply enjoyed ignoring them. She had a feeling it was a little of all three.

And now, with Alec lying quietly beside her, she was struck once again by what she'd somehow ignored. She'd teased him and smacked him around and rolled her eyes at his womanizing. She'd flat out told him to leave and called him every awful thing she could, but always, _always_, she was the one he came back to again and again.

Maybe it was the other way around and Logan was the cat. Logan had such expectations of her, and he was so disappointed when she didn't quite meet them. Alec had no real expectations. Nothing had ever gone his way, not since birth, unless he made it happen somehow. He knew the odds were against him and he just accepted what was available and made the best of it. He didn't expect anything different of her. He just assumed she was trudging along, doing the best she could like the rest of them, and Alec kept trudging along with her.

Logan wanted her to be a person with a higher calling and Max wanted to be noble, she did. Helping the downtrodden was right up her alley. She knew, however, that she couldn't really afford to have a higher calling. Logan never would have accepted what had happened at Morton's office, but they'd had to act. Questionable methods or not, all Max could do was try to keep as many of her fellow transgenics alive as she could. Alec understood that and accepted the ugliness that was sometimes necessary in their lives. He didn't try to make her live up to a higher standard. He stood at her side in the dirt and mud of the trenches. Alec just wanted to be around her, period, and in that sense, Alec was a much easier companion.

Max placed a hand on his arm where it was resting against her chest. "You know I'm gonna kill you for groping me, right?"

Alec laughed, immediately followed by a gasp. "Ouch."

"You ok?"

"Not so much," he answered, obviously hurting. "Can we just lay here... die in peace... please?"

"Kinda hoping not to die," Max answered.

Alec sighed, his nose gliding over her cheek again in a deliberate movement. "Knew you were gonna say that." He drew away from her slowly. "You think you can get some of this glass out of my back?"

"Sure," Max answered, hoping it was true. She didn't know how long she was going to be conscious, let alone mobile.

"I can tell it's trying to heal, but the bigger pieces are keeping the skin open," he added. It was not an uncommon problem with transgenics. Their accelerated healing meant wounds could heal things too quickly for a doctor to get to the heart of the problem.

Alec groaned as he shifted back onto his stomach and Max gave an answering groan as she tried to sit up.

"You know," Alec said breathlessly, "if we weren't dying, this would be the sexiest sounding time we've ever spent together. Whispers in the dark… heavy breathing… moaning…"

Max sniffed contemptuously. "Please."

"Begging…"

"Alec."

"Calling my name…"

"You want me to hit you?"

"Not really my idea of a fun time," he said, and she could hear the amusement in his voice. "Kind of a mood killer. Always preferred more of a snuggle-bunny, myself."

Max rolled her eyes even though he couldn't see it. "Just shut up, Alec." She sat as close to him as she could and reached out to let her fingers roam across his back. Almost immediately, she bumped a piece of glass and it shifted.

Alec hissed. "Maybe I wasn't… specific enough. Glass out… not in, ok?"

"Sorry," Max said, progressing more carefully, although the movement of the truck was making it nearly impossible.

Alec remained silent as she worked, but she could feel the muscles in the arm that she was pressed against tensing and relaxing as he tried to remain silent through the process. It only took a minute or so to pull out the shards that she could find, but by the end of it her hands were still covered in blood and the scent of it was almost suffocating in the confined space.

"Done," she said, her fingers gliding across his torn dress shirt one last time to ensure she hadn't missed anything.

"Now look who's doing the groping, huh, Maxie? Wondered when you'd get around to it," Alec said, but his voice was tight and she could tell he was just trying to keep up her expectations of him as her favorite perv.

"One, I can put the glass right back in, and two, like I told you before, you should really use that mouth for something more useful," Max shot back. She'd been leaning over too long and her abdomen hurt so badly she thought she might throw up. She sat back and propped her hands behind her, then slid them outward so she could ease herself back to the floor.

"And I told you," Alec said, grunting as he sat up, "I use it for all kinds of useful things. I promise to show you some time."

She heard him moving away from her toward the end of the truck. She wished she could help him with whatever he was up to, but didn't have the energy to do more than lie there.

The truck hit a hole in the road and, without warning, Max bounced up off the bed of the truck and slammed back down. Starting at her stomach, pain rippled outward in a wave. Max distantly wondered how she would know if she passed out, since she was already in the dark.

* * *

Alec had been stabbed before, occupational hazard for your friendly neighborhood assassin, genetically altered con man, and thief. He'd never really cared for it, but it had been easy enough to deal with the times it had happened.

This, however… His back was like a thousand little pinpoints of agony, little daggers just beneath his skin, digging in, shifting, stabbing every time he so much as twitched. He'd been shot before and it hadn't hurt this bad. Max had removed the larger pieces, but it had been too late for the smaller ones. His skin had already closed over them and they were going to be in there, scraping him raw from the inside out until someone dug them out or his body eventually managed to expel them. Either way, fun times ahead, and either way, he was too messed up to get the doors to the truck open.

He'd tried to give them an exit, but it just wasn't happening. He was pretty sure he'd passed out at one point, but then concussions were funny that way. In the dark, and with the truck moving, he just couldn't quite get himself together enough to pry the doors open. Alec didn't know how much damage he'd done to his head in the accident, but his brain was close to shutting down whether he liked it or not, and beating himself against the doors wasn't helping the situation. He was pretty sure the steering wheel had left a nice imprint across his chest and it was running neck and neck with his glass encrusted back right now. In short, they were stuck until Alec got himself together or White decided to let them out.

Alec wanted to scream he was so frustrated. Max was _dying_. He had no doubt. On top of her injuries from the accident, whatever White had done was serious and Max was fading fast. Unfortunately, she had no one to rely on but a guy who couldn't even manage to stand up straight right now.

The truck hit another pothole knocking Alec off his feet and sending him crashing into the side of the truck where he quickly slithered to the floor. He heard Max thump back down after a hard bounce, followed by an agonized whimper.

Alec ignored his body's demands not to move again and managed to sit up against the side of the truck. He reached out and pulled Max to him. He settled her between his legs, her back against his chest, and his arms wrapped around her, keeping her sagging form close to him. It wasn't much, but it would give her some cushion from the rough bouncing of the truck. The pressure on his cracked ribs wasn't doing him any favors, but then he wasn't _dying_. He had to worry about her first.

"Max?" he asked, his mouth close to her ear.

She groaned again, but roused herself enough to shift slightly in his arms. "Yeah," she wheezed out.

"I can't… get the door open," he said, winded, ignoring that the truck wall was digging into his back. "I'm sorry." And he really was. There was nothing he would like more than to get Max out of this truck, followed closely by gutting White like a fish. He wished like anything for a cell phone, but either he'd lost his in the crash, or White's people had taken it.

"S'ok. Not doin' such a great job myself," she answered, slurring badly.

Alec chuckled, and immediately saw a starburst of colors in front of his eyes, despite the darkness. He had no doubt, that if the lights were to suddenly come on, he would be seeing quite a few of everything.

Time seemed to drift and they remained silent, although Alec knew Max was awake. If either one of them began to nod off, the jostling of the truck on the crappy roads ensured that they were painfully reminded of how bad their situation was. He tried to protect her as best he could from the worst of the bumps, but it was a poor job of it. Alec was barely conscious himself. The only thing that kept him focused was that he could almost feel Max slipping away. She wasn't even bothering to brace against the movement of the truck anymore, perhaps couldn't.

Max shifted and Alec involuntarily tightened his hold. "Max?" She didn't answer and Alec's heart was suddenly in his throat. "Max, what is it?"

"You think I deserve this?" Max asked, barely audible above the sound of the truck.

He leaned his head forward so that his mouth was close to her ear. "Deserve what?" he asked just as quietly.

"I let… I let Logan die because I was too busy. I let half our people die."

"So you deserve to die in the back of a fruit truck?" Alec asked incredulously. "I don't know about you, but I don't think anybody deserves to die in the back of a fruit truck. I know I'll never be able to smell bananas again without wanting to hurl."

"Alec," she said, almost a sob.

"No, Max," Alec answered seriously. He brushed a hand over her hair. "You don't deserve this. You try and you try to help every one of us… even when we're not worth helping. Logan died because we were trying to help people, and we didn't get to him in time. That's all. It was bad luck. It happens." Max's head thumped back, resting heavily in the crook of his neck and shoulder. "Thanks to Logan, instead of all of us dying that day, half of us got out. We're grateful we met you, Max, not sorry."

"They're still dead," she whispered. "And we're still gonna die here."

"And half of the transgenics are still out there somewhere, alive. You did that. I never thought I'd say this, but… sometimes a moral victory is gonna have to do."

Max huffed out a light laugh, wincing at the pain it caused. "Didn't know you knew that word."

"Moral?" Alec put all of his amusement into his voice to be sure Max heard it. "Just you rubbing off on me again, Maxie."

"Alec?"

"Yeah."

"I'm glad it's you."

"Me?"

"Logan… He couldn't have done this," she said, like it was a terrible thing she was admitting. "Morton and… the crash… He wouldn't have survived, and… even if he had… ever since the virus… when we were alone, it was… awkward…"

"Max-"

"No, it's ok," she cut him off. "I love… loved him. It's just you… some things are easier with you."

Alec was silent for several moments trying to work out what he wanted to say, trying to decide if this was even the time and place to say anything. Ever since that moment when Max came out with her new hair and her new clothes and Alec had really _looked_ at her, it was like a lightning bolt had struck, illuminating things he'd never seen before.

Sure, Max was good looking. He'd always acknowledged it in an academic sort of way, but at that moment, it had suddenly become something different. He'd looked and he'd seen a beautiful woman who was more than a co-worker or co-conspirator, or fellow transgenic, more even than a friend who put up with his schemes and his wisecracks. She was all of those things, and so much more. He'd seen _Max_, and she was a glorious sight to behold.

"I don't need you to say anything," she whispered, sensing his confusion.

"What do you need?" Alec barely managed to force out.

"Just stay with me," she said, noticeably weaker. _To the end_. The last words hung in the air unspoken.

"I can do that," Alec answered, tilting his head slightly to lean more heavily against hers.

They were both dead and they knew it. Alec doubted he could stand, let alone fight and Max, something was seriously wrong with her. They were caught. They couldn't fight. It was done.

The truck started to slow, and Alec recognized the sounds of a city outside. After several stops and starts, which he guessed were checkpoints, the vehicle came to a halt and they heard the locks on the back of the truck being removed.

The doors flew wide, blinding them with the sudden influx of light. Alec lifted an arm to shield his eyes from the brain-searing glare, but the movement pulled at his chest and back and he couldn't hold back a surprised gasp. Max, too, had tried to move, and he could tell, just from the way she held herself against him that the results had been disastrous.

Alec's eyes took several extra seconds to adjust, but finally he could see, sort of. He'd been right about the seeing-multiples problem. White was standing just outside the truck with several of his goons on either side of him. He was looking very pleased with himself and Alec wished that he could wipe the smile off White's faces, all of them.

"Get them out," White ordered. "And hurry. She looks like she's about to croak and 452 has work to do."

* * *

_More soon…_


	11. Chapter 11

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

_We're down to the wire here. Only one more chapter after this..._

Chapter Eleven

* * *

Two men climbed up into the truck and picked Max up by her arms. She cried out as they lifted her, and almost immediately went completely slack in their grip.

"She's out," one of the men called, and White started swearing.

"Get her down here before she dies," their leader snapped. "Let's get this done."

Two more men climbed into the truck and hurried toward Alec. Guessing this was going to be his only chance, Alec put everything he had into his last ditch effort for freedom. He focused on careful economy of movement in an effort to stay conscious. He didn't bother with anything fancy, just fast, ugly cheap shots, dirty tricks, anything that would take them down and keep them down, a sharp jab to the trachea, a swift uppercut to the nose, shoving bone into brain. It worked on the first set of goons, not so well on the second set, definitely not on the third.

White himself climbed into the truck, stepping over the pile of bodies Alec had made to stand in front of him, flanked by the last set of Familiars.

Alec was winded and broken, fallen in the rear corner of the truck. "Just give me a minute," he wheezed. "Then you guys are next."

"You couldn't just die like all the others, could you?" White snarled. "You just had to make this difficult."

"You know us cats," Alec said past bloody teeth. "Nine lives and all that."

Alec saw the punch coming, but he didn't have the energy left even to raise his arms to shield himself from the blow. It didn't land on his face, either. White could see his wound and landed the punch on the side of his head where it would do the most damage. A skull was a hard piece of bone, and Alec distantly thought it had to have broken something in White's hand to do it, but the Familiar didn't seem to care.

The two guards dragged Alec out of the truck, not caring when his legs thumped down onto the pavement below.

"What do you think you're doing?" It was a high, strident female voice.

Alec raised his head, sort of, to see a thin elderly woman standing beside the truck. At least he thought it was an elderly woman. His vision was going in and out.

"Go away," White snapped. "This is none of your business."

"It looks like you're up to no good, young man."

The old lady looked kind of familiar, Alec thought, like he ought to recognize her, but at the moment, in addition to his fuzzy vision, his fuzzy brain wasn't coming up with anything.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll turn around and walk away," White warned.

"Leave her alone," Alec said, ignoring the fresh blood coming from his mouth and nose. He grinned, and guessed it must have been particularly grisly looking when the woman gasped. "She's not a cat. No feline DNA for you to try to wipe out, White."

"Cats? What's he talking about?" the woman demanded.

"Shut him up," White ordered, and Alec was quickly acquainted with someone's fist.

"I don't know which one of you that was," Alec slurred, "but when I figure it out I'm gonna break your neck."

"I said shut him up!"

"You hit me again, I'll find your family too," Alec spat, and was inordinately pleased when the Familiar hesitated.

"You just wait!" the old woman screeched. "You'll get what's coming to you! Mark my words!"

"Inside," White ordered, ignoring her as the woman stomped away.

Alec was dragged into the building which looked to be an old abandoned warehouse that he recognized to be nearly adjacent to Terminal City. White had brought them back to Seattle for some reason. Alec had already guessed it from the distinct stench that could only be their hometown, but seeing how close they really were to home was another thing altogether.

Max was already inside, sitting in a chair with her hands bound in front of her. She had a guard standing right beside her although Max looked like fighting was the last thing she was capable of. Her honey-colored skin was pale, headed toward sallow, and she was a bloody mess, bruised and battered.

"Max?" Alec asked, as he was flung into a chair several feet away, although facing her. His two guards used a plastic tie on his wrists, then stationed themselves on either side of him.

"M'ok," she said, sounding anything but.

"Enough," White cut them off. "We have work to do. You will make an announcement for your mutant friends that it's safe for them to return to Terminal City."

Max and Alec both stared in shock. "What?" Max asked.

"You will call them back," White said again.

"Why would I do that?" Max continued to just stare at him in disbelief. Alec couldn't help doing the same. White had to have gone truly nuts to think they would call the others back before they were sure it was safe. They certainly wouldn't do it with White making the request.

"Because if you don't, I will make sure your fellow freak here wishes he'd never been cooked up in a lab."

"Too late for that, buddy," Alec said.

"You will tell them they can return and then they will meet a swift end."

"Sorry," Max said tiredly. She was holding her bound hands close to her stomach, clearly hurting. "Can't do it."

"Kneecap the boyfriend."

Max's head snapped up and her eyes widened. "What? Wait!"

"I warned you," White explained nonchalantly. "I will keep going, removing bit by bit of your new man here until there's nothing left but a pile of his guts on the floor. I'll keep going until you do what I ask. And can I just say, you were pretty quick to move on after we got rid of your old boyfriend. I didn't think you were that kind of girl… freak… whatever."

"I…" Max looked at him, her expression horrified. "You'll kill us all."

"Yes. I will. But if you do what I ask, I'll make it quick. It'll take a few days or so for all of your freak friends to find their way back here. After that we'll release the virus and this can all end. Your days are numbered no matter what. Better for you to make it easy on everyone." He shrugged. "Maybe a miracle will happen in the meantime and you'll get away from me and warn them all. Maybe you can figure out how to kill me before we release the rest of the virus. In the meantime, you save 494, here, from a slow, painful death."

"Why do you need me to call them back? You've got the virus. You can kill us all any time you want to."

"The virus has a shelf life and I only have so much of it," White said irritably. "I already had to push up my timetable when your boyfriend got his hands on Morton's files and then you two freaks managed to kill the one person willing to make more of it."

"I'd like to say I'm sorry," Alec muttered, "But, uh… not so much."

"They'll never believe me," Max tried. "Look at me. They'll never believe I wasn't forced to make the announcement."

"I know cats don't like water, but I think we'll manage to make you look decent enough. Love the hair, by the way."

"I can't," Max said, looking even more ill, if that were possible. "I won't lure them back for you to kill them. You're crazy to think I would."

White walked up to the guard standing to Alec's left. In full sight of Max, White held out his hand and the Familiar placed his handgun in it.

"Now," White turned to face her, "where was I?" He placed the muzzle directly against Alec's thigh and pulled the trigger.

Fire blazed through Alec's nerves, burning them out temporarily such that he felt nothing, then after a few seconds, the burn began to creep back, slowly heating, until it was once again raging and he had to clench his teeth to keep from screaming.

"Alec!" Max screamed for him. "White, you son of a bitch!"

"I warned you, 452," he said indifferently. "I will keep going until you agree to do what I've asked. You will sit there in that chair and watch while I take him apart, piece by piece."

Alec forced his eyes up to meet Max's. He could see the terror on her face that she was going to have to watch someone else she cared about die while she was helpless to stop it. They both knew that no matter what White did, making that announcement was wrong. They also knew that he was going to kill them both no matter what and he would happily make it a long and painful process if necessary.

Alec, however, had one vital piece of information that Max did not. While he'd been grappling with the Familiars outside, he'd managed to lift one of their cell phones. He'd immediately dialed Command, using a very un-faked bit of whimpering as he was dragged in to cover the sounds of the buttons. He'd heard Dix answer and knew that he would still be listening, catching every last word of White's demands.

"This is why you brought us back to Terminal City? To make this announcement?" Alec asked breathlessly, ignoring the pain shooting in all directions from his leg.

"A message like this should be sent from home for it to be believed, don't you think?" White asked in turn.

Alec could only hope that they already had people looking for them. The vehicles parked outside the warehouse would be a dead giveaway. If they were really lucky, one of the lookouts had seen them arrive and alerted the others immediately. Alec just had to stall. That was all there was to it. He had to stall and keep White from killing or permanently maiming them in the meantime. Worst case scenario, even if it went completely south and Max was forced to make an announcement before White killed them both, Mole and Dix would already know it was a trap. They would be able to warn the others away.

"How's the back, 494?" White set his hand on Alec's shoulder and dug his fingers in. Alec bit his lip and instinctively tried to shy away from the touch, but White was too strong and Alec was weak as a kitten. When it didn't elicit the response he was hoping for, White's hand shifted, moving across Alec's back over the ragged dress shirt until finally Alec could no longer stand it and let out a sharp cry.

"Stop it! Stop!" Max ordered angrily.

"Will you make the announcement?" White asked, his fingers pressing over a section of embedded glass and Alec knew he was close to blacking out again.

"You… I can't!" she said, desperate and panicked.

"Max, please!" Alec gasped out. "Just do it!"

"Wh… what?"

Alec looked at her, begging her to understand. She had to know that he would never allow the others to be killed for his sake. He'd fought at her side for months putting himself in danger time and again to protect her and everyone else in TC. Max had to know that Alec had something up his sleeve. She _had_ to.

"Just do what he says," Alec said, not having to fain weakness. "I may have to die here, but I'd rather make it quick." He tried for a smirk, but knew he failed miserably. "I was hoping to at least leave a good-looking corpse, not a mutilated mess, and if you keep holding out he's gonna rip me to shreds."

"But…" Max's expression changed then. She went from horrified and panicked, desperate to save him, to disgusted, in one easy step.

Alec's stomach dropped. Apparently, Max didn't know anything about him at all.

"You'd turn them over? To save yourself some pain?" she asked incredulously. "You'd rather let them all die than face this?"

Stall, Alec reminded himself, _stall_, even if it cost him every tiny bit of trust he'd managed to garner over their months together. Keep talking, keep White occupied with their bickering, keep him thinking Alec was going to help him get what he wanted, even if Max hated him for it. It would hopefully save her in the end.

"Max, I look out for number one. Me. Always have, always will."

"Finally, some truth out of that mouth of yours," Max said, revulsion on her face. She shook her head and paled even further, starting forward out of the chair, but White grabbed her shoulder and forced her back upright. Max cried out at the jerking movement, then held very still, pain lining her features. "Good thing I've never listened to you, _494_."

Hearing his designation come out of her mouth was like a physical blow. Max had given him his name and he'd learned to cherish it. To have her take it away…

"Max…" He couldn't help the anguished plea from escaping, begging her to take it back.

"Enough of this," White snapped, realizing his plan was quickly unraveling in front of his eyes. "You will make the announcement."

"No," Max said, and this time there was absolutely no hesitation or doubt in her voice. She was staring directly at Alec as she said it, too, daring him to contradict her.

Alec couldn't help but look down at the open condemnation in her eyes, looked down at the blood pooling on the dusty floor beneath his leg. She didn't understand and she hated him for it, easily falling back into the same old patterns. It had probably started when he'd killed the virologist. She'd seen what he was capable of first hand then. She'd been reminded of who and what he'd been trained to be, and this apparently, wrong or not, cemented it.

"Guess I'm never gonna be the good guy, am I, Max?" he said wearily.

"No," Max said again, disgust pouring from every fiber of her being.

"This is useless," White said angrily. He turned toward the Familiar beside Alec and threw his gun back to him. "Kill him and dump the body. I guess 452 and I are going to have to make this a little more personal."

For a moment, Alec saw concern flicker in her eyes, but she quickly squelched it. She couldn't have any sympathy for the selfish jerk who would let everyone die to save himself some trouble. She couldn't show pity at the execution of a traitor.

"Hey, you!" It was a woman's voice, but not Max's.

All eyes in the room swiveled toward the source. Alec put all of his effort into focusing his gaze on the new player. It took an extra second, but this time he recognized her. It was the old lady from outside the warehouse, but that wasn't all. It was Gladys whatever-her-last-name-was, the wild-eyed cat lady from all of the TV news reports.

Gladys, bless her ancient, crazy, cat-obsessed heart, was holding a double-barreled 12 gauge shotgun and was aiming it right at White.

"You killed my cats."

For once in his life White looked genuinely bewildered. "What?"

Gladys didn't even hesitate. She fired both barrels.

The shot knocked White back, crashing into Max's chair and sending them both into a sprawl on the concrete floor. Gladys wasn't done though. The recoil hadn't knocked her down, as Alec would have expected. She _reloaded_, almost as fast as Alec could have done. He thought he might be in love.

Alec snatched a gun away from the guard beside him and trained it on the man who'd been guarding Max while Gladys covered the men who'd been guarding Alec. "Any of you other boys have anything to do with killing my cats?"

"No, ma'am," one of the men said quickly.

Gladys pointed the shotgun in his direction. "I know you're lyin' to me, boy. I don't appreciate it either. But your boss is the one made the decision, I'm thinkin', so he's the one who had to pay."

The man wisely chose to stay silent.

"Now you boys are gonna leave, and I don't wanna see you here ever again. You got that?"

Alec felt more than saw them nod. He decided he might as well make the best of it since he had a captive audience. "Where's the rest of the virus?"

There was a lot of shuffling of feet and glances passed back and forth.

"He asked you a question," Gladys snapped. "I got a box of shells, and I know what you boys have been up to. I don't have to be generous."

"In a storage unit at the airport," the man who'd spoken earlier said quickly.

"What number?"

"42."

Alec finally managed to get the plastic cuffs off and raised the cell phone he'd stolen to his ear. "Dix, you get all that?"

"_We'll send a crew ASAP. Mole should be with you in thirty seconds_," the transhuman answered.

"Thanks. Dix, call Dr. Shankar and tell her we'll be coming in hot. Max is in bad shape. Bullet wound, abdomen, something ruptured." She was currently unconscious on the floor beside a very dead White.

"_On_ _it_," Dix said and immediately hung up.

Alec dropped the phone from leaden fingers and faced the others. "Unless you people want to be here when an entire group of armed and pissed transgenics arrives, I'd suggest you go. Now. And leave the car."

It took less than three seconds before they were out the door and leaving in the box truck, Alec assumed taking their unconscious buddies in the back with them.

Alec pulled his belt off and strapped it around his leg trying to put pressure on both sides of the wound.

"You all right?" Gladys asked.

"Thanks to you," Alec answered.

"Sorry I was late." She used the shotgun to point to his leg. "I knew your girlfriend from on TV even though she looks kinda different. I put two and two together, what with all the people and my cats dyin'. When you said he was after you because of the cat DNA, I knew I couldn't let him hurt you."

Alec walked toward Max and White. He disentangled her gently from the bloody remains of White's corpse. He laid her flat, knowing he would have to wait for the others for someone who could lift her. It was beyond him now.

"Do you want him?" the old woman asked.

"What?"

"The body. We ought to do something with it. I just need to know if you want him."

Alec shook his head and had to stop for a second when the world began to sway. "No. No, I don't want him."

A wide smile stretched across her lined face. "Good. I'll take him then."

"What for?" Alec couldn't help asking.

Gladys just kept smiling. "Cat food is awful expensive these days." He watched her grab White by his collar and begin dragging his bloodied carcass toward the door. She stopped just long enough to let Mole come through it followed by several others, all armed to the teeth. They paused briefly when they saw White and Gladys.

"Let her go!" Alec ordered and all eyes swiveled in his direction and several of them started moving his way.

"You wanna tell me what just happened?" Mole demanded before he was even halfway to him.

Alec knew it was ok now. The others would get Max to Dr. Shankar. Alec sank to the floor on his knees, a bright flash of pain accompanying it as he jarred his injured leg. That was all it took, and it was lights out.

* * *

_A fitting death? More soon..._


	12. Chapter 12

**Missed Cues**

Summary: Tragedy strikes Terminal City, leaving Alec and Max with no one to fall back on but each other.

_Glad you guys approved of Gladys. I must admit I kinda like the old girl. So this is it, last chapter. Hope you enjoy the wrap-up._

Chapter Twelve

* * *

Max awoke slowly, taking in the sounds of beeping and whispering as well as the smells, antiseptic, illness, death.

She was in a hospital. Max forced her hand to obey and she settled it over her bullet wound. She was freshly bandaged and, after a moment to assess, she realized the pain was minimal. They must have got her to the hospital and fixed whatever had gone wrong after White punched her.

Max heard more whispering and she forced her eyes open. There were others in the room, but they were gathered around a second bed. Max turned her head, already guessing what she would find.

Alec was there, pale as a ghost. He was muttering and, as she watched, started to twist beneath the sheets.

"Crap. He's gonna do it again," Mole said. "Go get the doctor. Tell them he's waking up and he's gonna freak." An X series standing opposite Mole immediately nodded and left the room at a jog.

Less than thirty seconds later, Dr. Shankar hustled into the room and stepped to the side of the bed. "Alec? Alec, can you hear me?"

"Lemme go," Alec murmured. "Need… up." He began twisting on the bed, and now Max noticed he was in restraints.

"You'll have to hold him," Dr. Shankar said. "I'll go get something to sedate him, but he'll break the restraints again before I get back." She left at a run and Mole and the X-series stood on opposite sides of the bed like sentinels. Alec was clearly waking up and the more conscious he was, the more agitated he became.

Max sat up gingerly, mindful of a body full of aches and pains, but was pleased that she appeared to be healing so well. She reached out to shut off the monitor beside her, then pulled the leads from her chest. She eased her feet over the side of the bed, and scooted to the edge, setting her feet on the floor. She shivered at the cold tile, but focused on standing. She was a little light-headed to begin with, but it cleared after a moment and she pulled on a cheap, cotton robe she saw hanging in a nook beside her bed.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked. She couldn't help it. No matter how disappointed she was in him, she didn't want him dead. She just… she didn't know if she could look at him anymore and not see someone willing to turn them all over to save his own ass. She looked at the man in the bed and all she could see was a traitor.

She'd thought… After everything they'd been through, she'd thought that he'd changed. Or if he hadn't changed, she'd seen something different in him, or finally seen something of the real Alec, something she couldn't help but want to be close to. She'd thought that maybe she…

It didn't matter what she'd thought. She'd been wrong. Alec was still the same selfish bastard that had stepped into her cell at Manticore. She wasn't just disappointed. She was furious. He'd fooled her into thinking he was one of the good guys. He'd conned them all. She was disgusted, plain and simple, with him and with herself for believing him.

Mole didn't look surprised that she was awake. Either that or he had bigger worries at the moment. "The shot hit the bone and it messed up the muscle," Mole explained. He sounded funny and Max realized it was because he didn't have a cigar in his mouth since the hospital wouldn't allow it. She tried to think if she'd ever really heard him talk without one, but quickly gave up.

"So what's with the cuffs?" She could only look at them in dismay. She hated seeing any of them restrained, even it was apparently for their own good.

"He keeps going nuts, but they can't figure out why. His head was a mess, had a skull fracture, but the swelling's going down now. He didn't appear to have any other life-threatening injuries, his leg is already close to healed, but they're still having to sedate him. Don't know if it's brain damage or what, but every time he starts to come out of it, he starts fighting like it's his last chance and trying to get away. His temp keeps goin' up and Doc thinks it getting dangerous even for one of us."

Alec's sweat-covered brow furrowed. He started murmuring again incoherently and then began to sit up, pulling at the padded restraints around his wrists. Mole and the other X quickly grabbed him around his arms.

"Hey. Pretty Boy," Mole called. "Take it easy already. Don't make me hurt you."

Alec's head fell back, but he continued to pull at the cuffs, clearly putting more muscle into it since she saw the X-series having to work harder and heard Mole grunt as he tried to hold him. "No… Stop…" Alec started fighting in earnest, his glassy eyes finally opening and he began jerking at the restraints. Mole nodded to the other man and they forced Alec back down onto the bed. Almost immediately, Alec let out a bloodcurdling scream and Max instinctively backed away.

At least until she realized what was going on.

Dr. Shankar ran back into the room carrying a syringe with what looked like enough to take down an elephant. She shoved it into the port of the IV attached to Alec's arm, and quickly depressed the plunger while Mole and his buddy continued to keep Alec lying down.

It took a few seconds, but finally, Alec's thrashing movements slowed and he slumped in the bed. "Please… please," he kept mumbling.

"There were no injuries other than his leg and the concussion?" Max asked.

Dr. Shankar looked up and her eyes widened. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"I'm fine," Max said offhandedly. "Did you check his back?"

"His back?" Dr. Shankar asked, clearly confused. "We checked his whole body for visible injuries when he was brought in. There was nothing wrong with his back other than some bruising."

Max pursed her lips. "Have you checked him since he was first brought in?"

"He's been in restraints since he started to wake up and punched the doctor who was working on his leg."

Max walked up to the bed and unclasped one of Alec's wrists. "Get the other," she ordered. Dr. Shankar still looked confused but she did as she was asked. "Now flip him over."

Mindful of the IV, Mole did the honors and immediately the doctor gasped. "This… it wasn't there when he came in. What happened?"

"It's glass," Max answered. Alec's back was bright red and inflamed. Max had known she wasn't getting everything when she'd pulled out the larger shards, and she remembered White taking full advantage of that fact. "Alec fell through a window and then had someone drag him through the glass to make sure it burrowed in good and deep. His skin healed over the pieces before he was brought in here. It's why he's pissed when you guys keep holding him down. He's just too out of it to tell you you're trying to stab him to death."

"I…" Dr. Shankar looked genuinely horrified and then seemed to gather herself. "I need to make a call then we'll take care of it as soon as possible." She once again left hurriedly.

Max looked at Mole whose expression was shocked, no small feat when all you had to work with was scales.

"I thought he was asking for a drink," the man said quietly. "He kept sayin' glass… glass."

"You didn't know," Max assured him. "He won't hold it against you."

"Says you. He'll make me pay triple for my cigars!" Mole said, getting progressively louder. "There's no telling what he'll charge for the booze! He'll hold this over my head for years!"

Max nodded. Yes, Alec was just that mercenary. _I look out for number one. Me._ Well, Max had to do the same.

"You guys wanna give me a minute?" she asked. Mole looked toward the bed as if to make certain Alec really was calmer, then he and the other man disappeared. She looked to the door and saw that there were two other transgenics outside. Apparently she and Alec rated a full bodyguard detail now, even though she guessed Dr. Shankar had hidden them away in some corner of the hospital.

Max leaned down close to Alec's face, bright with fever. He sluggishly forced his eyes open. "Thank you," he slurred.

Max just nodded. "I owed you that much. Now, listen up." She knew her voice was hard, and it made Alec really focus on her. "I don't ever want to see you again. I won't tell the others what you said, but I can't trust you with them and I want you gone. That understood?"

Alec remained perfectly still, the only sound his labored breathing as he looked at her. There was no smirk, no surprise even, worse there was no regret, no remorse for what he'd been willing to do. His face was blank, emotionless, and it confirmed for Max that this had to be done.

"Is that understood?" she repeated sternly.

Something flickered for just a second in Alec's eyes, but it was gone too fast for her to grasp. He closed his eyes and, with what had to be a tremendous effort after the dose of sedatives he'd been given, turned his head away from her. "I understand," he said lowly. "Now get out."

Max straightened and marched out of the room.

* * *

Max heard a knock on the apartment door and wondered whether or not she should bother to get it. She'd been resting since she got back from the hospital, but still wasn't in top form. She'd have to remember to ask Dr. Shankar one of these days what had happened. She'd marched out of the hospital, flanked by two bodyguards, without even checking with the doctor to see if it was all right. She supposed, since she wasn't dead, that she was going to be fine.

The door to the apartment nearly rattled off its hinges as someone banged on it again. "Open up, Princess. I know you're in there."

Max groaned. It was Mole. He'd eventually break the door down.

"Coming," Max muttered, and rose from the bed a bit tentatively. She made her way to the door, expressly refusing to look in the direction of Alec's closed bedroom. She wasn't sorry for what she'd done. It had been necessary. She'd done the right thing. She just had to keep telling herself that.

Max opened the door to find a glowering lizard on her doorstep. "What?"

"You better explain and explain fast," he said, barging in past her.

"Explain?"

"Joshua called me. Don't get me wrong the guy's great at a decorating party, but me and the dog ain't what I'd call buddies."

"So why'd he call you?" Max asked, although she had a sinking feeling she knew why.

"He says Alec came here last night, got a few things and then went back to his old place in town." Mole was scowling now. "He told Dog-Boy to go home and won't say anything else."

"Alec was here?" Max asked wide-eyed. She'd been in her room all night. Alec had to have come in and picked up his stuff in the next room without her any the wiser. She knew he was stealthy, but she'd had no idea he could get around her that easily.

"Yeah. Now the way I see it, there's not a person in this dump with anything against Pretty Boy. Nobody except you," he was punctuating each phrase with a finger stabbed in her direction. "So what did you do?"

"Why do you care?" Max snapped, anger quickly flaring in the face of his accusation. She was in the right here. She shouldn't have to defend herself.

"Because you might be Fearless Leader, but your sidekick is the one that makes it work. He gets food and water we can actually drink and the freaky stuff that the real freaks need to survive. He practically charms the birds out of the trees and then gets us a good price for them. He's the one everybody goes to with their problems and he takes care of it while Your Highness is too busy talking with the Apes to bother with the little stuff."

It was like a slap to the face. She'd been too busy to take care of a lot of people. Logan and the others were dead because of it. And while she'd been so busy trying to secure them a place out in the world, Alec had apparently taken up the slack on the home front. She'd vaguely known Alec was busy doing things. She just hadn't bothered to ask what.

"Mole, I-"

"Unless you want this to get ugly, you better get him back," Mole ordered. "Word's already gettin' around that he's gone and nobody's happy. You're an '09er, which means you already got a serious credibility problem, then you asked us all to stick around instead of goin' to ground and now half of us are dead. We get why, but you're still not popular with some of the crowd. Alec's helped every person in this dump at some point and he's the one with all the contacts. We need him to rebuild this place, so you _fix_ this."

"I can't fix it!" Max burst out. "You don't understand!"

Mole shook his head angrily. "He saved your ass in that warehouse. You owe him."

"A crazy cat lady with a shotgun saved me," Max snapped back.

"_Alec_ saved you."

"He was gonna let you all die!" Max shouted, no longer able to hold it back. "He was gonna turn you all over!"

"Holy crap." Mole just stared at her. "You're really that stupid, aren't you?"

Max was taken aback. "What?"

"Alec had an open line with Command the whole time White was talking to you. He called us so we'd know what was going on and we'd have a team on the way."

"He… he knew you were listening?" Max frowned, a terrible feeling starting to dawn.

"He was trying to get you to stall before you got him shot again. It would have taken a little time for White to set up what he wanted and we'd have shown up to save the day before you even got the announcement made. We thought you'd figured it out and were playin' along."

Max closed her eyes, realizing what she'd done. She'd allowed herself to think the worst of Alec instead of thinking about _why_ he would do such a thing. He'd been trying to protect her, _again_, and she'd sent him away. She saw it now, the look on his face when she'd called him 494. He'd kept her from falling apart after Logan and the new virus, and tended her when she got shot. She'd seen the inner turmoil after he killed the doctor. All of that, and she'd gone straight back to thinking he was a shifty, selfish jerk just looking out for number one. Max wanted to kick herself. Yes, she really was that stupid.

And she'd left him alone in the hospital. Max closed her eyes as shame washed over her. Alec had been hurting so badly and she'd walked out on him. Alec hadn't left her side in days, no matter how much of a burden she became, and she'd just walked away with him in such bad shape.

"I'll… I'll fix it," she said.

"What did you do?" Mole accused.

"I'll fix it," she said again.

"You better. Cause if the dog calls me again cryin', I'm not gonna be nearly as nice."

Max started looking around frantically for where she'd tossed her shoes. "Josh is with him? At his old apartment?"

"Yeah." Mole walked toward the door, satisfied that his mission was accomplished. He gave her one last look. "Don't come back without him. I don't get my cigars, I get cranky. You won't like me when I'm cranky."

"I'll get him back," Max vowed.

* * *

Max didn't bother to knock. She just opened the door and stalked in. Joshua was sitting in the chair facing the sofa, but he quickly rose when he saw her and bounded toward her, visibly upset.

She looked behind him to the sofa where Alec was lying on his side with his eyes closed. She thought he might be asleep and was torn between the desire to sneak away and hide from the fact that she'd been such an idiot, and hurrying to his side to make sure he was all right.

Joshua stopped in front of her to tower over her, for once purposely using his superior height to his advantage as he frowned down at her. "Max fix this."

"I will, Big Fella."

"No," Joshua said sternly, not willing to let her be flippant. He waited until Max was looking him in the eye. "Max hurt Alec. Not so easy this time. Have to make it right."

"I will, Josh," she said more seriously. "You wanna give us some space?"

Joshua whined and shot a worried look in Alec's direction, clearly fearing Max would make a bigger mess than she already had. Finally, he nodded and picked up his motorcycle helmet. "Big Fella wait at apartment. Make dinner. Little Fella bring Alec."

Max just nodded and accepted a kiss from Joshua on her forehead, although she noted he was still frowning as he left, closing the door quietly behind him. Apparently nobody was happy with her today, maybe rightly so.

Max walked farther into the apartment and sat down in the chair Joshua had vacated. Alec had settled into the worn sofa on his side, his arms crossed in front of him. She watched him for a second and decided he wasn't asleep after all. He was awake and if she had to guess, he was pissed. "Alec?"

Alec opened one eye to glare at her, then closed it again. "Why are you here?"

"Came to see you."

"Try again," he shot back. "My guess? Someone clued you in that you made a complete ass of yourself. How'm I doin'?"

"Pretty close. Why didn't you tell me?"

Alec sniffed. "What for? No matter what I say, you think the worst. That and I was stoned out of my gourd thanks to the doctor trying to keep me down. Barely knew my own name until last night."

Max noted he was holding himself very carefully, with his back held away from the sofa, not moving a muscle and she wondered if the doctor had been able to get all the glass out or if there were still tiny slivers hiding buried in his skin. Once again Max felt ashamed. She'd left him in the hospital to find his own way home.

Max took a deep breath. "Alec, I'm sorry."

He opened one eye again and just looked at her for a second before letting it fall back closed. "Don't worry about it. It's fine."

Max frowned, watching his purposely blank expression, and wished she could see what was going on beneath the surface. "You'll come back to Terminal City?"

"No," he said curtly.

Max had been starting to rise from her chair, but plopped back down. She should have known she wasn't going to get out of this so easily. "You won't come back?"

"You heard me."

"Why?"

"You like workin' for someone who watches you everyday expecting you to fail? S'not fun, Max."

"I don't _expect_ you to fail." Even as she said it, she knew it was a lie. He'd taken care of her, waited on her hand and foot since Logan's death and after White caught them she hadn't even bothered to ask why he'd changed his tune so suddenly.

Alec snorted, and she saw him flatten a hand across his chest like he was still sore. She knew her own body was still stiff from the beating they'd taken in the car wreck.

"I don't expect you to fail," she said again with more conviction this time. If it wasn't true yet, she would _make_ it true.

"Whatever, Max."

"What else can I say?" she asked, annoyance creeping into her tone. She'd said she was sorry. What more could she do other than make sure not to do it again the next time something went south?

"Nothing," he sighed. "Can't make you any different than you are. You don't trust me, and never will."

"I was dying, Alec. I wasn't exactly thinking that well. You gonna hold it against me?"

Alec gritted his teeth, and sat up, allowing no more than a tiny grimace to show that he was still hurting. She realized he was holding his chest, but it was definitely his back still bothering him from the careful way he was carrying himself. "When you're barely functioning, you go on gut instinct and yours said I couldn't be trusted."

"Fine. I'm a cynical bitch," she admitted easily. "I'm pretty sure that's established fact by now." Max pursed her lips and sat forward. "You want to make me grovel, that's fair, but you don't have to punish everybody else for what I did. Terminal City needs you."

Alec rose with a slight hitch as he straightened and then walked into the kitchen. He pulled a glass down from a shelf and rummaged until he found a bottle of something. She supposed they'd fled to TC so quickly some of his stash had been left behind of necessity. "I just can't do it, Max."

He was running and Max couldn't allow it. She wasn't lying. TC needed Alec and so did she. She'd spent a sleepless night with a terrible weight settling in her chest at the knowledge that Alec wouldn't be there in the morning to help her with whatever new catastrophe had snuck up while they weren't looking. Max stood and walked closer to him, but he still refused to look at her. "Talk to me, Alec. Why won't you come back?"

"Cause I'm tired of being looked at like I'm gonna screw up at any minute." His hand tightened around the liquor bottle to the point she was afraid it would shatter. "You know what it was like being Ben's twin? They were just waiting for me to put one foot wrong. I had to toe the line like you wouldn't believe to keep 'em from putting a bullet in my brain." He splashed some of the scotch into a tumbler and drank it in one swallow. He set the glass down and refilled it, his eyes glued to it like it held all the answers. "The only reason they didn't kill me after Rachel was because they needed me for a mission that I'd been pulled off of before they sent me in to Berrisford. The mark had already seen me and they couldn't make a switch without him getting suspicious, so they beat me down instead of putting me down. Now, I come in, work my ass off, and you're still looking at me like I'm two seconds away from causing a disaster. I can't take that, Max. Not from…" His eyes darted toward her, such overwhelming emotion in them that Max nearly took a step back. "Not from you."

"Me?"

"You." Alec turned toward her, and she retreated as his gaze turned predatory, until she was stopped when she bumped into the counter. Alec kept coming, stopping only inches from her, purposely invading her space.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't want you looking at me like that, Max. I... I know things haven't always gone... right when I'm around, but..." He stopped, and she was temporarily mesmerized by the muscles working in his throat as he swallowed.

"Am I looking like that now?" she asked. Max didn't have to try to show how concerned she was. Alec had to forgive her. He _had_ to. They were both messed up, and made mistakes, and said the wrong things at the wrong time, but Alec always came back to her. He always forgave her and helped her. She probably didn't deserve it, but he did it anyway. He was good for her because of it. He called her on her crap, and then just let it go. He didn't hold it over her head for years and make her feel guilty all over again. Friends didn't do that. People who were more than friends _couldn't_ do that and hope for a relationship to last. She had to learn to do it and vowed that she would. Alec had earned it.

"Alec," she coaxed when he didn't answer, "do I look like that now?"

Alec studied her face, and once again she saw that nearly stunned expression, as if he'd never really seen her before. "No."

"That's because _I_ screwed up and I'm sorry."

"You should have trusted me," he said, his eyes flashing with barely suppressed emotion. He was keeping himself locked down until he was sure it was safe. She'd smacked him down hard after all, the last times they'd been together.

"I should have," she acknowledged. "Will you forgive me?"

Alec remained silent, studying her as if he could see right through her and Max let everything she was feeling show on her face, regret, shame, fear… hope.

That was the thing about forgiveness. She had to ask for it, knowing she didn't really deserve it and Alec would have to give it, knowing the same. The person who forgave had to be the better person. Thankfully, she already knew he was. She was counting on it, maybe for a lot more of her future than just the next few minutes.

"Please, forgive me," she said earnestly.

Alec suddenly shifted even closer and Max froze as he brushed a lock of her still blonde hair behind her ear. "I can dye it back," he whispered, his lips dangerously close to hers.

"My hair?" she squeaked. Max felt a sense of euphoria begin to bubble up. He hadn't said the actual words that he could forgive and forget, but it was there in his eyes, beautiful bright green now that she could see them so closely. This could work. They could _make_ it work if they could both just manage to keep their scarred psyches from making each other crazy.

He buried his fingers in her hair, his fingertips warm against her scalp, and Max couldn't hide the shiver of anticipation that coursed through her. The tiniest smirk appeared, as if he realized the effect he was having on her and was enjoying every second of it. "I miss your real color," he said, his breath brushing across her skin.

"Everything's just messed up right now," she said, knowing she meant more than her hair, which was the least of her worries. "We can set it right. It'll just take a little time."

Alec's mouth twitched in amusement, his expression once again telling her that he understood, but he wasn't going to actually admit it. "I'll dye it back. We can't have you show up on the news with roots showing, can we? What kind of hairdresser would I be? I'd never live it down."

Max forced herself to meet his eyes. "You'll have to come back to Terminal City to do that."

"You want me back just so I'll fix your hair?" he asked, one eyebrow arched.

"No... I..." How did she explain the panic just at the thought that he might not be coming home with her? "Joshua wants you home for dinner," she blurted out.

"He does, does he?" Alec said, all mock seriousness. "You know I hate to disappoint the big guy."

"And I… want you home," she forced out. She was crap at admitting she needed anyone, but this was a time for desperate measures. She set her hand on his arm and felt how tense his muscles were. He was motionless, just waiting to see what she would do next. "I need you home. With me."

"With you?" he asked, a new fire in his eyes.

"With me," she said again. "Definitely with me."

She felt his other hand at her waist, a hot brand against her skin. Just the smallest pressure would close the distance between them. "Don't know how I missed it before," Alec murmured, his gaze roaming over her face.

"Missed what?"

"Shoulda seen it sooner."

"What?"

"You." Abruptly, his expression changed and he backed away, releasing her so suddenly she felt dizzy. "Problem is, I don't think you're seeing me."

Max clenched her hands into fists to keep from reaching out to draw him back. She could see how badly she'd hurt him, and once again she remembered his face when she'd called him 494. "_Alec_, I see you."

"But you still think I could let people die to save myself," he said with a frown.

Max shook her head. "No, I… I should have realized you were up to something. I _should_ have and I'm sorry." Knowing she was the one who'd broken faith, it was up to her to repair the damage. She steeled herself, and stepped forward, invading his space this time. She was careful not to crowd him too much though for fear he would back into the cabinets and hurt his back.

She really was seeing him now. She knew Alec wouldn't do anything to hurt her or the others. The man who'd stayed with her, protected her ever since leaving Terminal City, who'd held her in the back of the truck, soothing her even though he was hurting so badly himself… She was seeing him now.

Max should have seen it sooner. Alec had been there all along and she'd been blinded by her hopes for her and Logan. They never had seemed to click, despite how much she and Logan both tried, and now, as much as it tore her up inside that Logan was gone, she could see how hard she'd been trying to have something that wasn't meant to be. Standing in front of her, however, was the possibility of something new and she couldn't let it get away. If nothing else, she'd learned that from her relationship with Logan.

Max set her hand on Alec's chest. She could feel his heartbeat beneath her fingers and it was as good as any lie detector. Manticore would have taught him to control it, but his lessons weren't working right now and she was pleased that she could have that effect on him.

"You have to come back with me."

"And why is that?" He smirked.

Max felt a smile beginning to form. Alec looked cool, but his heartbeat was telling her something else. "You promised to stay with me."

"Yeah, but you were dying. I didn't figure I'd have to wait that long before I could ditch you," he deadpanned.

Max raised an eyebrow. "You still promised. I hear you've been trying to convince people you're trustworthy."

Alec's smirk fell away. "Nah. I'm up to no good and everybody knows it."

Max's own smile faltered. She looked up at him and waited until he was looking her in the eye. "You're not the bad guy, Alec. I _know_ that. I just forget it sometimes and have to be reminded."

His smirk reappeared, but she could feel his heart hammering beneath her fingers. "Max, I'm not the good guy, either. I'm not Logan."

She was tempted to laugh or to make some offhand remark, some "tell me something I don't know" comment. Instead, she shook her head, and raised her hand to set it against his cheek. "I don't want another Logan," she said gravely. "I had one, and I'll always remember him, but I don't need another one."

Abruptly, Alec grabbed her by the waist and set her on the counter, stepping closer to stand between her legs. It put Max a little higher so that she had to tilt her head down.

"Wasn't sure you knew what you were doing," he said. "Thought maybe you didn't recognize me since you weren't looking down on me."

Max rolled her eyes and smacked him on the side of the head. Alec started to sway and she realized what she'd done. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, resting her forehead against his. "Sorry," she whispered. "Guess I need to be more careful with you, huh? Didn't know you had such delicate sensibilities."

"Max, you know I'd never hurt you, right?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah, I know," she said immediately. She did. Thinking back on what had happened in the warehouse, she realized how stupid she'd been to doubt him. "Why?"

"Because I'm about to put my mouth to good use. I just wanted to give you a heads up."

Max couldn't stop the unbelievable sense of elation that spread through her body. "You keep telling me it does good work, although I've never seen it myself." It was going to be ok. They were going to _make_ it ok.

Alec's hands at her waist slowly slid to her back and pulled her closer to the edge of the counter and him. "You gonna put this on my performance review?"

"I'll have to see results first, soldier. So far, all I'm getting is backchat."

Alec smiled widely, a real one, then tipped his head closer so that his lips were right by her ear. "Can you say it just one more time for me?" he asked, his breath tickling her over-sensitized skin, sending a shiver through her that Alec had to feel.

"What?" Max frowned.

He pulled back so she could see his face. "You're sorry. It's so rare. I just wanna savor the moment."

Max brought her hands up, resting her forearms on his shoulders so she could brush her fingers through his hair. "You were right. I was wrong. I'm sorry. I should have known. I'm a big idiot." She would say it each and every day for the rest of her life if it would keep him with her.

"Now was that so hard?" he asked, eyebrows raised. His full lips tantalizingly close to hers.

"Alec, shut up and kiss me already."

"I can do that," he answered, for once eager to obey one of her orders.

* * *

_Been a pleasure. Thanks for reading!_


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